


Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)

by zjofierose



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2010-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:55:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the  chaos of the Great War, Zach is a medic in a camp hospital in Soissons, France. When he meets an American soldier named Chris with a gunshot  wound, both their lives change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3634902) by [Fengyang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fengyang/pseuds/Fengyang)



_**Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)- Prologue**_  
 **Title:** Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)  
 **Artist name:** [](http://tringic.livejournal.com/profile)[**tringic**](http://tringic.livejournal.com/)    
 **Pairing:** Pinto  
 **Genre:** angst, h/c, romance, AU  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Word count:** ~47,000  
 **Warnings/Spoilers:** War. Death- dead bodies, shooting, etc. Blood. Religion. French. Latin. Suicide-minor character. infant death- minor character. homophobia. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Really, truly, I mean it, ANGST AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.  
 **  
Summary:** In the chaos of the Great War, Zach is a medic in a camp hospital in Soissons, France. When he meets an American soldier named Chris with a gunshot wound, both their lives change.

 **Disclaimer** : in case the fact that it's set a hundred years ago didn't tip you off, THIS IS FICTION. ENTIRELY MADE UP. NOT BASED IN REALITY AT ALL. and yeah, i'm not getting paid either.

 

 **A/N:**  
 **Part 1** : to my amazing artist, [](http://tringic.livejournal.com/profile)[**tringic**](http://tringic.livejournal.com/)  , OMG THANK YOU. to my fantastic betas, [](http://1lostone.livejournal.com/profile)[**1lostone**](http://1lostone.livejournal.com/)  and [](http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/profile)[**rainbowstrlght**](http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/) , THANK YOU SO MUCH. for all the cheerleading, correcting, suggesting, dissecting. THANK YOU. also to [](http://emmessann.livejournal.com/profile)[**emmessann**](http://emmessann.livejournal.com/) , who stepped in at the last minute to hold me accountable for all my loose ends, THANK YOU. to [](http://medea-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**medea_fic**](http://medea-fic.livejournal.com/)  , for being all around awesome and listening to me whine. and last but not least, to [](http://garden-hoe21.livejournal.com/profile)[**garden_hoe21**](http://garden-hoe21.livejournal.com/) and [](http://13empress.livejournal.com/profile)[**13empress**](http://13empress.livejournal.com/) for nobly keeping me on task when i wanted to do was read fic and pretend i'd never signed up.

 **Part 2** : this is a historical AU. most of my historical knowledge is either much earlier or much later, so I tried to research as much as possible, but, in case you didn't know, WWI is kind of a huge topic! i'm sure that there are historical inaccuracies, so if you see them, feel free to point them out. but please know i did try to stick as close as i could to authenticity.  
likewise the french. i have studied french, but not in many years, so i'm quite sure that there are errors, whether of vocab or syntax or usage. please feel free to point them out.

 **Part 3** : the fanmix was made by [](http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rainbowstrlght**](http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/) , and is amazing! hooray! additionally, if you're interested, while i was writing i listened to a lot of Arvo Part (esp his Te Deum) and also to Eric Whitaker. Tallis, Britten, and Tavener were also along for the ride.

 **Part 4** : HAPPY BIRTHDAY [](http://amerasu1013.livejournal.com/profile)[**amerasu1013**](http://amerasu1013.livejournal.com/)  ! here bb, i tied a ribbon on it and everything! happy reading!

 **Link to art:**   
<http://tringic.livejournal.com/19447.html>   
****

**Link to mix:** <http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/199245.html>****

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**Prologue**   
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_1992 San Francisco_

 

 

It was just past nine when the phone rang. I blinked over the rim of my freshly filled coffee cup to shoot it a glare that had no effect.

 

 

“Yes?”

 

 

“Mademoiselle Stuart?”

 

 

“Yes…”

 

 

“It is Gilles Agricourt, from le Bureau? I sent you an email yesterday?”

 

 

Rusty gears turned in my brain, synapses firing sluggishly, and my eyes rounded with excitement.

 

 

“Yes, Monsieur Agricourt! So nice to speak with you!”

 

 

I set the cup on my desk, shoving it absently to the side. This was a man I most certainly wanted to talk to.

 

 

“Likewise, ma cher. I am wondering” he paused, his rich voice politely hesitant, “ you had said in your email that you are busy until next week, n’est-ce pas?”

 

 

“Yes, that’s true.” My face fell. His email had suggested a truly unusual find in central France, an antique journal that a family had found and were hoping to have evaluated. One that supposedly contained the account of a truly passionate homosexual romance. Such things were quite rare, especially considering the time period. It sounded quite interesting, and I was very excited to get my hands on it. But I was tied up in the city for the next few days. “I’m very sorry…”

 

 

“My dear, I am going to have to ask you to reconsider.” His tone was both firm and apologetic. “The gentleman who was the owner of these manuscripts” _manuscripts? As in, more than one?_ My heart jumped. “He will be buried on Sunday. And the family…” he coughed discreetly, “I am sure that it is simply out of respect, and not out of a desire to cause upset to ourselves, the historians, but…” I waited. “They want to bury them with him.”

 

 

I gasped involuntarily, a hand coming up to cover my mouth.

 

 

“No…”

 

 

“Oui, ma cher. They are quite immovable.” His voice was thick with antiquarian’s grief. “I have convinced them to wait until Sunday, and allow them to be photographed thoroughly, but it is the best I can do.” He swallowed eloquently, allowing me a moment to let that sink in. Five days. Five days, and what could be an unimaginable find would be buried in the rich loam of central France, prey to every bug, worm, and fungus nature could dream up.

 

 

It was sacrilegious.

 

 

I had Travelocity up on my browser already, searching flights to Paris.

 

 

“Le Bureau will cover your expenses, bien sur. We only want this to be handled by the best.”

 

 

I _hmmed_ absently, clicking through the flights. “I can be in Paris tomorrow morning at this time. Is that acceptable?”

 

 

“Oui, Mademoiselle, that is very helpful indeed. I shall meet you at the office downtown at noon, d’accord?”

 

 

“Yes, that should work. I’ll catch the first train south. Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Agricourt, I would have hated to miss this opportunity.”

 

 

“Rest assured that we greatly appreciate your cooperation, Madame. I shall see you tomorrow, n’est-ce pas?”

 

 

“Yes. Tomorrow. Au revoir, Monsieur.”

 

 

I hung up quickly, my mind already whirling and mouse poised to purchase my ticket. Time was of the essence.

 

 

I had to pack.

 

 

\--

 

 

The flight was blessedly uneventful, landing twenty minutes early in Beauvais. I got a taxi to make the trip into Paris proper, and was dropped at Gare Montparnasse in time to catch the first train south of the morning.

 

 

The countryside was beautiful, but in spite of the coffee served by the snack cart, the rhythm of the wheels soothed me into a light doze, allowing my fantasies concerning the find to morph into dreams. Curled handwriting danced across a page, ink splotches marred a line written in haste. Here, a delicate sketch of floral genitalia; piston and stamens rendered in exacting detail, there the liquid stain of a tear. All the magnificence of the human heart etched on paper, ready for the world to see.

 

 

The conductor woke me with a gentle “Madame. _Madame_ ,” as my train arrived at its destination. I disembarked sluggishly, blinking my eyes in the noonday sun as I heaved my small duffle over my shoulder and headed down the main street.

 

 

The office of Le Bureau D’Antiquités du Sud-Ouest was not far from the station; I had been here once before, a few years back, to inspect a World War II find. A small brick building with a heavy door, opening onto a nicely lit front room complete with a small sofa, antique light fixtures, and a very prim secrétaire.

 

 

“Bonjour, Madame. You are here to see Msr. Agricourt, c’est ca?”

 

 

“Oui. Is he in?”

 

 

She shook her head slightly, her straight dark hair rippling. “Non, he has left instructions for you to leave your bag, and to meet him pour un peu de dejeuner at the café on the corner.” She regarded my battered duffle with a slightly contemptuous eye. “If you would just place that… here” she indicated the corner behind the desk. Safely out of sight of any entrants.“S’il vous plait?”

 

 

I obliged, straightening my neck with a pop. The secretary had already turned back to her screen, but she gestured vaguely to the east.

 

 

“le café c’est… a la gauche, après le gare. D’accord?”

 

 

“Oui, merci beaucoup.”

 

 

The door gave a muffled thump behind me, and I was out on the street again, squinting into the early afternoon sun. It was late April, warm and humid and sunny. The silk scarf around my neck was sticky, but I ignored it, catching sight of the café to the left, and allowing my rumbling stomach to hurry me along.

 

 

I had not previously met the man in question, but given that all the tables were empty save one, I approached the middle-aged gentleman near the back without hesitation.

 

 

“Msr Agricourt?”

 

 

He folded his napkin hastily and rose, smiling politely as he kissed my cheeks. “Madame Stuart, quelle plaisir! Please, you must call me Gilles.” He pulled out the chair opposite and waved me into it, pushing it in as I sat with the ease of long practice. “You look very well, Madame.” He smiled, and waved over the waitress. “Deux café, s’il vous plait, et…” he paused, looked at me appraisingly. “Deux salades aussi, merci beaucoup.”

 

 

“So.” I leaned on the table. I was suddenly very tired. “Tell me. What is it that I have traveled the last twelve hours to see?”

 

 

He smiled, clasping his hands together. “Oh, Madame.”

 

 

“Liz.”

 

 

He scowled. “Liz. So American. So harsh. Non.” He nodded at the waitress as she set the coffees carefully on the table. “Merci.” He took a sip, then leaned forward again. “Madame. Elisabet.” I rolled my eyes. “This find is exceptional.”

 

 

“Tell me.”

 

 

His eyes twinkled. “Once upon a time, there was a man. A young man, and he fought in a war.” He sipped his coffee. “He was an American, resident in France at the time, who was pressed into service in what was thought to be the Great War, the war to end all wars. He survived.” He paused, and I remembered to breathe. “But he never went home.”

 

 

“What happened?”

 

 

Gilles shrugged, pursed his lips. “Well, to a large extent, we don’t know. He stayed, opened up a bookstore, and lived for sixty years alone in a farmhouse outside of town. Never married, never moved.” His expressive face folded in a strange combination of pity and excitement. “He died two days ago, and in the process of beginning to clean his desk to look for the book-keeping ledgers, the shopgirl came across a stack of journals.” He leaned forward, well aware that he had my full attention. “Journals that date to 1917. Journals that confess the story of a truly great love. A love that… would not be mentioned at the time.”

 

 

I swallowed hard. Set my now empty cup down.

 

 

“When can I see them?”

 

 

He just smiled.

 

 

\--

 

 

The table in the farmhouse had been scrubbed, the scars in the wood gleaming faintly in the sun. The pile of journals sat in the corner, a slumping pile as high as my waist, leather bound volumes in various stages of disrepair.

 

 

The first volume sat in front of me.

 

 

I ran a reverent finger over the leather binding. I shouldn’t be touching it at all with bare hands, but the girl had set it bare-handed on the table not five minutes ago, so I thought one last stroke wouldn’t cause any significant damage.

 

 

The buttery leather was smooth under my touch, and I thought about the hands that had held it, held the pen. The hands that now lay stiffly folded in the next room. It felt awkward to examine something so personal with the author so close by, but I told myself he wouldn’t mind, or he wouldn’t have left them to be found, and slipped on my latex gloves.

 

 

The cover turned noiselessly, the leather giving gracefully to reveal creamy leaves of paper traced with dark blue ink, veins of pigment meandering across the unlined page.

 

 

I pulled it closer, and began to read.

 

1) n’est-ce pas- is it not so?   
2) d’accord- okay?   
3) pour un peu de dejeuner- a little bit of lunch   
4) le café c’est… a la gauche, après le gare. D’accord?” “Oui, merci beaucoup.”- “the café is on the left, after the train station. Okay?” “Yes, thank you very much.”   
5) “Deux café, s’il vous plait, et…Deux salades aussi, merci beaucoup.” – “two coffees, please. And two salads also, thank you.”

 


	2. Octobre

_ _

_October 1917_

 

 

 

 _27th oct 1917_

 _rained today. lots. cold, drizzly rain. the church itself is dry enough, though damp, but when i went to get bread from the corner, i got wet all through. bodes ill for the pneumatics._

 _had a letter from ma saying that she’s well. joe, too, last she heard. mrs. whiteside up the street said to say her daughter sends her regard. that girl. golly. paris is not far enough._

 _had a new batch of soldiers come in from the front today, mucking up the floors with their mud and blood and tears. mostly not too bad- shrapnel wounds, gunshots. they’ll live._

 _or they won’t._

 _there’s at least one yank. françois pointed him out. unconscious, and in frenchie blue, so who knows why he thinks he’s one of mine. kid looks all of 15. when he wakes up, if he wakes up, then. then. we’ll see._

 _29 oct. 1917_

 _monday again. not that it matters, not here. our work flows on different tides._

 _saw a hospital boat last night on the Aisne- all lit up. lights for the red cross, little green fairy lights all over the rest of it. lovely, really. floating through the dark like that._

 _off-loaded some patients onto it in the afternoon- gilles, who likes checkers so much, and jack warren, who would sing hymns on sundays. bunch of others. i expect i’ll eventually forget them all, or try to._

 _most, anyway._

 _so-called yank hasn’t woken up yet. fevered. he’s been shot in the shoulder, nothing complicated, but didn’t get cleaned fast enough. also, seems to have dragged his leg on something- has a nasty gash on his right calf, also slightly infected._

 _françois has decided that he is my patient. God knows why. In case he wakes up and really is a yank?_

 _he sleeps. i wait._

 _30 oct. 1917_

 _still raining. had been so nice. indian summer, we’d call it at home. don’t know what they call it here- don’t really have indians. warm, sunny, bright even though the shadows are getting long. at least the rain has gotten rid of the flies, they were making the patients crazy. hard to swat flies with your arm in a sling, and they do love the blood._

 _the coughing has gone up as predicted. we’ve got enough blankets for the time being, but other than that there’s not much we can do to keep the boys warm._

 _it’ll be a long winter._

 _planning to sleep on the ward tonight- someone should stay up and take tea to the coughers, and fr. louis has done it the last two nights._

 _so-called yank still out. am honestly surprised he’s lasted this long- wound is definitely infected. oozing, red. he must be fresh off the boat to have an immune system this strong. i may not have the full proper training of some of the others, but i’ve seen enough to know when it’s bad. more than enough._

 _still, jury is out._

 _30 oct. 1917_

 _actually, is probably the 31st now. i can hear père louis reciting the Te Deum in the corner. he told me once that technically it is only required to recite the Te Deum at Sunday Matins, but he figures at this point we can all use all the prayers we can get._

 _can’t argue with that._

 _Miserere nostri domine, miserere nostri._

 _Fiat misericordia tua,  
Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.  
In te, Domine, speravi:  
non confundar in aeternum. _

_so-called yank’s fever has been rising all night. i had françois help me clean his wounds earlier. had some rotgut gin mme. bauchard up the street brought down a week ago. been using it here and there. could peel paint with the damn stuff. had françois hold him down, and washed his shoulder real good. at least got it so it doesn’t smell. his fever’s been going up ever since- it’ll either break soon, or he’ll be dead by morning._

 _hoping he wakes up at least long enough to give a name._

 _i hate it when they’re unidentified._

 _31 oct. 1917_

 _so-called made it through the night. fever broke around dawn. i’d been keeping cold cloths on his head, since most of the others had been sleeping well. thought i’d try and help him out. all of a sudden he just relaxed, sighed. thought for a moment he was gone, but then he smiled in his sleep and i could tell his temperature had dropped._

 _merci a Dieu._

 _i need sleep. must be nearing dix heures. here comes jean and sr. marie-claude to take over._

 _31 oct. 1917_

 _church is busy tonight. All Hallows Eve. the cemetery behind the church is full of women with flowers, with holy water, with hands and faces and voices and tears. tomorrow is a day of obligation- the main church will not be opened, since it is full of dying men in beds, but the side chapel will be. mass will be held on the ward by père louis for all who want to participate. also, turns out john simpkins with the cracked skull was working toward being rev. simpkins in the lutheran church, so hey, something for everyone._

 _something comforting about All Hallows Eve. know that’s not how it’s supposed to be, but I’ve always thought so. candles, voices, prayers. surge of faithful humanity bearing us all along. who needs faith with so many to have it for you?_

 _éternelle accorder un repos pour eux, Seigneur,  
et laisser la lumière perpétuelle_

Zach jumps nearly a foot at the touch of a hand on his sleeve, pen skittering to blotch across the page.

 

“Puis-je avoir un peu d'eau s'il vous plait?”

So-called Yank is awake at last, Zach thinks with satisfaction. Though his French is flawless. Perhaps Francois is wrong after all.

“Oui, bien sûr. Un moment, d’accord?”Zach unfolds himself from the chair, stretching his stiff muscles as he stands. He leans to the side, hears his neck crack. There is a cup on the floor from earlier- he had been wetting the lips of the unconscious patients, So-called Yank among them. He grabs it, and makes the brief trek across the cold flagstones to the end of the ward. Looks like the rain barrel is running low- he’ll have to make sure to tell Marc, so a fresh one can be rolled in. At least the never-ending rain is good for something.

 

Zach returns, handing the boy the cup carefully. He is still weak, and his hands tremble lightly. He drinks slowly, clearly resisting the urge to drain the cup immediately. He’s well-trained, whoever he is.

 

“Merci beaucoup.”

 

His voice is rusty with disuse, and his hair is short cropped, sticking up all over his head. It’s filthy enough that it’s hard to tell the color, but it’s certainly fairer than Zach’s own, he thinks. Blue eyes, surprisingly luminous in the dim light of the sparingly rationed electric bulbs. He finds himself wondering what color they would be in the sun. Cerulean? Azure? Cobalt?

 

Zach is absorbed enough in examining his waking features that he nearly misses the increasingly desperate expression forming on the boy’s face. “Ah,” he asked quickly, “le basin?”

 

A flush rises swiftly in the boy’s pale cheeks. He ducks his head in embarrassment. “Non, non, je peux marcher!”

 

Zach rolls his eyes. “Like bloody hell you can. You just woke up!” he mutters impatiently. Honestly, who cares about modesty after being in a trench for weeks? Bedpan in hand, he turns just in time to see the smile that crawls swiftly across the boy’s mouth.

 

“You’re an American! I had no idea!” The boy’s excitement is obvious and catching.

 

Zach lifts the sheet and situates him, meeting his eyes and allowing a slow grin in response.

 

“So you _are_ a Yank after all. François was right- that’s why he assigned you to me, you know. He thought you might be.”

 

The boy’s grin is contagious. Zach can feel himself giving the first genuine smile he remembers using in weeks. He replaces the pan under the bed, and reaches for a basin and cloth from the nearby cart. “Here, sit up, if you can, carefully.”

 

He leans forward to help ease the boy to an upright position. The clench of teeth against the discomfort is obvious, but he makes it with only a brief gasp of pain. Zach casts a critical eye over his shoulder- the bandages had been changed the night before, and are not showing any fresh staining. They’ll hold for a bit, he decides- there are no red lines showing underneath them, and the stench of infection is mostly gone.

 

“So. Talk,” Zach declares, glancing at the boy from the corner of his eye. “I haven’t heard another Yank talk in… God, I have no idea how long. Months.” He lifts the cloth from the steaming water, wrings it out.

 

“Well…” the boy laughs briefly. “What do you want to know? I mean, this isn’t how I usually make someone’s acquaintance. Making le bavardage seems a little… odd?” he laughs again.

 

Zach smiles to himself as he pushes the boy’s shoulders forward to reach the middle of his back with the cloth. “Well, let’s start with a name. You do know you’re unidentified, right?” He leans around to see the boy’s face. “Francois knew you were American, I’m not sure how, but that’s all we knew. You came in dressed in Frenchie blues, no tags, no letters.” He dips the cloth again, swishing it through the basin.

 

“Chris.”

 

Zach blinks.

 

“My name is Chris. I was - I _am_ with the First Division. Came over here… well, I guess I don’t know when. I don’t know what day it is.”

 

“It’s the thirty-first of October.”

 

Chris chuckles again. “Halloween? That’s a laugh. I guess that means…I’ve been over here nearly a month. We put in to shore on the third, at Calais.” He rubs a hand through his hair, grimaces. “I don’t… I don’t really remember what happened.”

 

The cloth has become grey with grime. Zach rinses it a third time, raising it to Chris’ uninjured shoulder, rubbing past freckles with firm strokes down to his elbow.

 

“I can’t really tell you anything” Zach frowns pensively, scratches at the edge of his jaw. “We got a passel of soldiers in late one night, all kinds. Lot of Tommies, some Frenchies, one Jerry and the odd man from Oz. And you. There must have been some shooting, some shelling. You got shot-” he gestures pointedly to the bandages “-in case you hadn’t figured that out. You also cut your leg on something, and banged your head. Or had your head banged for you. But I don’t know any details. Our information is always spotty at best.” He looks down at his hands, knuckle deep in the cooling water. The distortion of the water makes them wavery, knotted, old. “You were lucky.” A glance at Chris’ face, and he looks older, solemn, as men do when faced with their own death. Zach looks away, chews his lip, blinks. “Oh. And I’m Zachary.”

   
  
   
 

The sun is warm on his neck as Zach rolls his head loosely to and fro. The massive kettles in front of him bubble greasily, and the belching fumes make his eyes sting even though he’s upwind. Still, at least it isn’t raining. He tips his head back and closes his eyes, letting the sun’s heat play across his face.

 

“Ey! Paresseux! Retourne-toi au travaille!”

 

Zach squints open a reluctant eye open to see Francois laughing at him from the edge of the courtyard. He grins lazily, and bats a hand at Francois’ general direction.

 

“Ahh, get lost. I’m working, I’m working.”

 

One last stretch, then he reaches resignedly for the large wooden paddle. In a previous incarnation it had pulled loaves from large ovens in the patisserie in the Rue de Jean D’Arc, but now it is cracked and dark with service as a laundry paddle. Three enormous kettles in front of him froth with lye, instantaneously killing the myriad lice, fleas, bedbugs, and other nasties that live on all the wounded men when they first arrive. It is an arduous and never-ending battle, but one that PèreLouis never gives up on, and Zach finds himself in whole-hearted agreement. It is hard, frequent, back-breaking labor to clean the sheets and towels and bandages for this many patients on a weekly basis, but it is absolutely necessary. It keeps the men as comfortable as possible, it cuts down on disease outbreaks, and it also helps keep the staff as parasite free as possible, for which Zach is endlessly appreciative.

 

He shoves the paddle in deep, pushing the sodden linens around in the pot, the boiling water slopping messily to hiss on the fires below. The day is cool with a hint of a breeze, but the air near the kettles is sweltering. Zach wipes sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve, and feels his face split into a smile as he catches a glimpse of a familiar figure settling into a chair under the eaves.

 

“Oi, Jean!” He catches the attention of another staffer, and waves the man over, “your turn!” The man grimaces, but takes the proffered paddle wordlessly from Zach’s hand. Zach claps him gratefully on the back, and turns to lope across the grass toward the shade.

 

Chris is sitting before a table, a basin of water, a bar of soap, and a mirror in front of him. There is a look of intense concentration on his face as he carefully unfolds a razor and grasps it firmly.

 

“Hey- what are you…” Zach stares, watching in puzzlement as Chris awkwardly changes his grip on the handle again. “Oh. Ohh. Here-” He reaches out firmly and takes the razor from Chris’ hand. “Here. Scoot your chair back. There, good.”

 

“Hi Zach.” His smile is toothy and bright. “I’m shaving. Except, my right hand is strapped to me because of this silly bunch of stitches I seem to have. So, really, I’m about to slit my throat.” He grins wider. “How very nice to see you.”

 

Zach chuckles, settling so that he’s perched on the edge of the table facing Chris. He grabs the bar of soap, dunking it in the water, and rubbing it vigorously between his palms, building a lather. Chris obligingly tips his head back, exposing his neck and chin to the cool morning air, leaning forward to Zach’s touch in an unusual display of trust.

 

“So. I see you’re up and about.” Zach grasps his chin in one hand, tilting his jaw to rub suds over the left side of Chris’ face.

 

“Yeah. Père Louis says my leg should be fine soon. The infection is mostly better in my shoulder, but he says it’s nowhere near ready for the stitches to come out.”

 

Zach nods absently, rubbing the rest of the soap across Chris’ chin toward his shirt before rinsing his hands. He flips open the razor with a practiced flick.

 

“That’s good.” He tests the blade lightly with his thumb. Sharp. A slow, even, glide beginning at the edge of Chris’ ear and moving down along the line of his jaw, then rinsing the blade. “Hey.” His brow furrows with concentration. “I’m curious. How old are you, anyway? I mean, the first time I saw you laying in that bed, I would have sworn you weren’t old enough to have your voice drop, let alone need a shave.”

 

Chris looks offended. “I’m nineteen. Plenty old enough to enlist. I’m no child.”

 

“Huh. Really?” Zach tips Chris’ chin up, stroking the blade up from the base of his neck in clean, straight lines, before pausing briefly to look him in the eye. “I wouldn’t tell, you know.”

 

Chris squints down the bridge of his nose, cross eyed from the angle. “No, I’m not joshing you. Nineteen in August, enlisted the day after my birthday.” He turns his head the other way, giving Zach access to the other side of his face. “Why, what are you, some kind of old man?” He doesn’t smile, leery of the keen edge of the razor, but his eyes twinkle.

 

Zach snorts. “Not hardly. I’m…” He pauses, thinks for a minute. “I’ll be twenty-three next year.”

 

He rinses the blade, shaking droplets of water to the stones below. His thumb presses gently into the curve of Chris’ bottom lip as he leans in to scrape the last of the soap from the corner of the other man’s mouth.

 

“Maybe I am.” He raises his eyes to Chris’ and feels a sudden jolt. He hasn’t realized how close he’s leaned. He pulls his hand back, straightens up. Rinses the blade and dries it, folding it away before glancing back to the question in Chris’ eyes.

 

Zach sighs. “Old. Maybe I’m just a sad old man.”

 

 

1) O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.  
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us :  
as our trust is in thee.  
O Lord, in thee have I trusted :  
let me never be confounded.

2) _dix heures –_ ten o’clock

3) _merci a Dieu-_ thanks be to God

3) _éternelle accorder un repos pour eux, Seigneur,  
et laisser la lumière perpétuelle – _eternal rest grant them, O Lord, and let light perpetual…

 

4) “Puis-je avoir un peu d'eau s'il vous plait?” – “Can I have a little water, please?”

5) “Oui,  bien sûr. Un moment, d’accord?” – “Yes, of course. Just a moment, ok?”

6) “Merci beaucoup.” – “Thanks very much”

7) “le basin”- the bedpan

8) “Non, non, je peux marcher!”- “No, no, I can walk!”

9) le bavardage- chitchat

10) “Ey! Paresseux! Retourne-toi au travaille!” – “Hey! Lazy! Get back to work!”

 


	3. Novembre

  
_ November 1917 _

_  
_ _3rd nov, 1917  
_

 _getting progressively cooler. jean-marc, one of the little street-boys who runs errands for père louis has been stealing blankets from abandoned apartements, which is good, but they all have to be boiled, which is bad. still, we’ll all appreciate them when it snows._

 

 _see C periodically- he had his head shaved the other day. it always looks funny at first, but all the soldiers have lice, and there’s just no better way. scalps are strange. see-through and lumpy. wards would be a phrenologist’s field day._

 _he carries it off better than most- don’t think i’ve ever seen eyes that color on anyone other than children._

 _had another letter from ma- joe’s wife is expecting again. letter was dated from june. wonder if i’m an uncle again yet?_

 _mme bauchard has spun me some more yarn from père louis’ goats. she doesn’t have time to use it, and as i am the only other person around who can cobble together something approaching a knit, sock duty falls to me. i’ve got some inedible walnuts i can use for dyeing._

 _maybe i’ll make a hat for C. his head is awfully pathetic, bereft of all its hair._

 __

_no real word from the front. rumors abound, but even the soldiers who come in don’t know anything, not really._

 _we are in the palm of His hand, so they say. but He is squeezing so tight, we can’t see past His fingers._

 _5 th nov. 1917_

 __

_first confirmed case of typhoid. haven’t had any yet this winter._

 _hate typhoid. doesn’t kill too many, but enough. and is so much work._

 _have to boil all drinking and cooking water indefinitely. rinse hands with alcohol after every patient. keep everyone hydrated._

 _on the up side, found a pack of tobacco on a patient who died right after we got him. will light a candle in his memory, and then a cigarette._

 __

__

It is very late when Chris finds Zach. The air is still, captive in its anticipation of the pre-dawn breezes, cold and clear and star-filled in the darkness. If the moon has been up at all, it is gone now, leaving only blackness in its wake.

 

It is the glowing ember of his cigarette that he sees first, the black-on-shadow figure of a man only appearing when he peers closely at the stone step.

 

“Zach?”

 

The glow bounces as the cigarette is ashed. A pause, then: “Chris.” The voice is tight. “You’re up late.”

 

Chris shoves his hands into his pockets and saunters over to stand next to the indistinct shape on the step. “Latrine.” He shrugs. “Mind if I join you?”

 

The man-shaped bit of night makes an absent gesture to the unoccupied space of step beside him. “Free country.” He laughs; short, harsh. “Sort of.”

 

Chris sits. The steps are cold beneath his thin, hospital-issue pants. He shivers briefly, and scoots to sit closer to Zach, welcoming the warmth of another person.

 

Zach proffers the half-smoked cigarette, and Chris takes it wordlessly, fitting it between his lips and pulling. The smoke is rich, smooth. “Michel Robau.”

 

Chris exhales, watching the curl of smoke dissipate into the ether. “Hmm?”

 

“Michel Robau. It was his tobacco. He died about an hour after we got him this morning. Intestinal rupture. We kept him sedated, or I would have said thanks for the smokes. I lit a candle for him, though. Père Louis would approve.”

 

Chris takes another pull, tapping the cigarette lightly before handing it back. He lets the smoke sit heavy in his mouth, denser than the air already in his lungs, before releasing it in a fragrant cloud.

 

“To Michel, then. Merci, mon ami, peut vous reposer en paix.”

 

Zach stubs the cigarette out, pocketing the end. He buries his face in his hands, rubbing his temples with his fingers, hunching against the night air.

 

“Hey, Zach, are you all right?” Chris hesitates briefly, wondering, then reaches over, scooting up against the other man’s side, and begins to rub his thumb into the muscles at the base of Zach’s neck. He can feel Zach stiffen, then relax, hanging his head forward to allow the other man’s thumb and forefinger deeper access to the curve of his shoulder.

 

“Yes, I just…” He sighs, tipping his head to one side. “I just…am exhausted, for one thing.” He chuckles, the sound a little desperate. Chris believes him. He can’t count the number of times he’s looked for Zach, only to find him back on the ward, lifting a patient from a bed, or deep in the kitchen hauling water for the sisters, efficiently cleaning the game that the locals have managed to bring in. He can’t keep still, doesn’t seem able to stop, to breathe, unless forced.

 

Zach continues, “There’s at least one case of typhoid now, which means all the new soldiers are suspect…” He groans as Chris presses firmly into a cluster of nerves. “And typhoid, you have to act fast to keep it contained. It’s not usually that deadly, but everyone here has a weakened immune system, and it’s such close quarters…” His voice trails off into the darkness, and Chris wonders briefly how many times Zach’s seen this now, how many fingers gone limp he’s held in his own elegant hands.

 

Chris digs the heel of his hand into the channels between Zach’s shoulder blades and spine, surprising a gasp out of him.

 

“Christ, that feels good. You’re not hurting your arm, are you?”

 

He smiles, shakes his head. “No, I’m being careful. As long as I only use this one I should be fine. My right arm’s still strapped, anyway.”

 

Zach is growing progressively limper beside him as he gradually eases the motion of his palm down the column of his spine, seeming to sink into the mortar and stone of the steps below them.

 

“Mmm…” Zach laughs suddenly, back jumping under Chris’ hand. “You know what I could really get excited about right now?”

 

Chris grins into the darkness. He loves Zach’s laugh. “No. What?”

 

“Cake.”

 

“Cake?”

 

“Yes, Cake. Gateau. Un petit morceau, un peu de chocolate, une cupcake.” Zach groans appreciatively as Chris digs an elbow into a knot at the base of a shoulder blade. “There was this lovely place in Paris, near the Place de la Republique. Tiny little place, had two tables out front, stuck between a bookshop and a used furniture store. Run by a teeny little old lady, Madame Dumas, barely came up to my armpit. Sweet, though, and made the best desserts you’ve ever tasted.”Zach sighs in remembered pleasure, slumping forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

 

Chris smiles, lost in the blissful look on Zach’s face. “Tell me about them.”

 

“Hmm…” his voice is dreamy, lost in memory. “Well, she made all the usual sorts of things. Tarts, cookies, you know. But the first thing out of the oven every morning were these tiny little ginger cakes, with the smoothest vanilla icing you could ever ask for. They’d fit in the palm of your hand, all warm from the oven. I’d go every morning, first thing, have three of them and a café au lait.” He laughs quietly. “I used to bring her flowers, once a week. She didn’t have any teeth left, and she’d grin this toothless grin at me…”

 

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

 

“Mmm…” Zach thinks for a moment. “Must have been at least six months ago.” He rubs a hand through his hair, wipes it on his pants. “I hope she’s ok.”

 

He turns to Chris, cocks a crooked grin. “When all this nonsense is over, we’ll go to Paris before we go home, and you can try one of those little ginger cakes. Best thing you’ve ever tasted, I promise.”

 

Chris grins back, his chest strangely tight, and claps Zach firmly on the shoulder. “Come on. You need rest, and I had better reclaim my bed before they snatch it out from under me.” He hauls himself to his feet, reaching out to grasp Zach by the forearm and pull him up after.

 

Zach sways lightly in place, straightening slowly, running a hand through his hair. His eyes are a faint gleam in the light from the gibbous moon.

 

“Thanks, Chris, I…” he yawns suddenly, jaw cracking with the stretch. “I appreciate it.”

 

“Don’t mention it. Just…sleep well.”

 

  


 

It’s days before Chris sees Zach again in more than just passing. The typhoid seems to be contained with only four cases, mostly men fresh from the front, but the vigilance persists. All the staff have been run ragged in the effort, Zach especially, Chris thinks. He seems to occupy a strange no-man’s land in the hierarchy, where he is considered both skilled enough to do clean and set and stitch wounds, but is also fair game to be recruited for any and all grunt labor that may be needed.

 

Many of the men who were less poorly off have thrown in with the nurses and tried to help as much as possible, so Chris, having use of an arm and both his legs, has taken to carrying small things to patients and doctors- bandages, water, blankets, food. He has also been spending time translating for some of the British soldiers who were having difficulty communicating with the doctors and nurses. There are several staff who were fluent in both French and English, but not enough to be everywhere they’re needed.

 

He is in the midst of explaining to one of the soldiers, Peter, why exactly it was that Dr. Suivot is so adamantly against him smoking while his recently collapsed lung is healing when he felt a light hand on his shoulder. He glances up in surprise, meeting Zach’s weary smile.

 

“Hey. I’m on break- when you get a minute, come find me. I’ve got something to show you.”

 

Chris nods once, and Zach is off, whistling lightly under his breath. Peter is now attempting to bribe him to sneak him a smoke, _un seulement, s’il vous plait, **s’il vous plait**_. Chris sighs, pats his hand sympathetically, and leaves him to the less than tender ministrations of Mme Neuraux as he heads off in search of his friend.

 

He finds Zach in the back garden on his hands and knees, loosening the damp soil near the foundation. He leans against the stone wall and waits, watching as Zach produced a series of tiny potatoes from a small flour sack and buries them one by one, evenly spaced in the fertile loam.

 

“Don’t tell,” Zach says.

 

“Hmm? Don’t tell what?”

 

“Don’t tell anyone you saw me do this.” Zach pulls his fingers absently through the top of his hair, leaving a smear of dirt by his hairline. “The food shortage will be bad enough in a couple months that these will be fair game. But…” he scowls, “there’s not much point making it through the winter if you’re just going to starve in the spring. If we don’t leave some seed and some starts of things, there’ll be nothing to eat at all come next summer.”

 

Chris nods grimly. Zach is right. Dire as things are now, you have to plan for when they get worse.

 

Zach stands, brushes the dirt off his knees and hands, faces Chris and smiles. His eyes are amber in the weak winter sun, bloodshot and dark-ringed with fatigue, but still lovely in their lightness, their clarity. Chris realizes he’s staring abruptly, and flushes, but notices something in the edge of Zach’s temple.

 

“You’ve got some dirt…just…” Zach rubs ineffectually at the smudge, smearing it further into an eyebrow. Chris laughs and pulls out his handkerchief. “Here. Just hold still… there.” He touches the cotton to his tongue, then to Zach. The newly clean spot is pink from the friction, flushed against the pallor of the rest of his skin.

 

“Thanks.” Zach’s eyes are warm as he pulls Chris by the arm along behind him. “Come on, I’ve been waiting for this.”

 

Zach leads him into what has once been the sacristy of the church, before it has been repurposed to serve as the male staff’s dormitory. Père Louis has his own room from before the war, when he had already lived at the church, but Zach, Marc, Francois, and the two British doctors, Roger and Harry, live crowded into this small space. Five military issue cots lined the walls in various stages of disarray, while the corners of the room are cluttered with candles and icons and thuribles; all the debris of daily life interrupted.

 

Zach makes his way over to the cot in the corner, straightening the grey blanket on top before sitting down, and gesturing to Chris to join him. He reaches under the edge of the frame to pull out a battered cigar box, about five inches by nine inches and tied with a bootlace. His face is alight with anticipation as he pulls the lace loose, and pushes back the lid. Inside Chris can see a motley assortment of items- the last of Michel Robau’s tobacco pouch and papers, a collection bottle caps marked for use as poker chips, a pack of playing cards, a small blue glass perfume bottle, a length of ribbon, and several packets of letters.

 

Zach upends the box onto the blanket, spilling the contents into an untidy heap. A bottle cap escapes and rolls across the stone floor, spinning in ever shrinking circles before Chris reaches out and snags it as it begins to collapse under its own gravity. He replaces it in the pile with its fellows, fingering through the pile to uncover a series of photographs. He’s flipping them over with a finger; a handsome young man laughing at the camera, the same man with his arms around a young woman. The man and the woman and Zach, his face alight in a way that Chris has never seen it, looking very, very young. Zach sees him and moves the photos away, his gesture casual but his face closed, and Chris decides against asking, gathering the bottlecaps instead and beginning to deal them out, one then one then one.

 

Zach is already shuffling the ragged deck of cards, fingers firmly bowing the squares of paper to arch between his narrow palms as they flutter into an orderly pile. He deals swiftly, distributing a hand of five cards to each and leaving the remaining cards in a pile between them. He has pulled up his legs and crossed them, left big toe poking through a hole in his woolen sock. His face is serious, but his eyes are laughing as he places a bottle cap into the center and captures Chris’ gaze.

 

“All right, soldier. Ante up.”

 

 

 _11 th nov. 1917_

 _killed the last chicken the other night. mme neuraux made soup with the carcass. would have been nice to save it and hope for eggs, but we wouldn’t have been able to feed it through the winter. so, it feeds us._

 _only two deaths on the ward this week. shipped out a whole load of men yesterday onto a hospital boat. the ward seems almost empty now. mostly empty beds. good, though- lets us catch up on the laundry a bit._

 _C is still here- too well to ship off home, too injured still to be sent back. for the moment. he will have to go back soon. he knows it._

 _14 th nov. 1917_

 _dreamt of paris last night. haven’t done that in a while. it was spring, like it was when i first got there. flowers on the trees, music on the air. mirielle dancing in the twilight with tristan, laughing and laughing. God._

 _i didn’t cry._

 _C saw their photos. who knows what he thought._

 _it’s freezing at night, now. the edges of the river are slushy in the mornings, and the window panes are frosted over. it’s impossible to try to heat the main church, so we distribute blankets and sweaters and try to keep warm mugs in hands._

 _fr. louis is moving C and a tommy, name of james, to sleep with the rest of the staff in the back. they’re too well to take up beds, and marc heard downtown today that we’ll be getting a bunch of boys in tomorrow at the latest. will be crowded, but extra bodies mean more heat, so there’s that._

 __

__

Zach is sitting on a low stool and milking Fleur when he notices Chris shifting excitedly from foot to foot on the stones in front of him. He looks sheepish and eager, and Zach feels a clutch in his stomach at the hopeful expression on his face. He lets his hands continue in the rhythmic motion, deciding to let his companion wait for the moment. The goat’s udder is warm, and she stands patiently enduring his ministrations as the hot liquid hits the sides of the metal pail between his feet.

 

Chris squirms, but keeps silent.

 

He finishes the milking and slaps Fleur on the rump, making the goat amble unconcernedly off into the courtyard. He watches her go, then squints up at Chris, who is still silently grinning, and making a truly unconvincing attempt to appear calm. He rolls his eyes, repressing a smile, and gives in. “Well, spit it out. What’s with you?”

 

Chris’ grin widens. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands!”

 

Zach raises a skeptical eyebrow. “In my experience, that never ends well.” He crosses his arms.

 

Chris frowns. “Fine, I promise it’s nothing foul. No slugs, no toads, no…whatever.”

 

Zach doesn’t move.

 

“Oh, come on, you’ll love him, I promise!”

 

“Him?”

 

“Oh, just…just do it already!”

 

Zach heaves a long-suffering sigh and obeys, closing his eyes fully and cupping his hands in front of him. There’s a pause, and then his hands close instinctively around a tiny squirming ball of fur. His eyes snap open, only to star at the tiny calico kitten blinking back at him.

 

“Hmm. For one thing, this is a ‘her’, not a ‘him’.” Zach cuddles the kitten against his chest, where it burrows into his shirtfront to hide from the chill air.

 

Chris frowns again. “How do you know?”

 

“Well, first of all, it’s a calico. Only females are calico. Secondly…” He turns the kitten over and lifts its tail. “See? Girl.”

 

“Sure enough.” Chris examines the kitten consideringly. “Can we keep it? The church doesn’t have a cat- surely it’d be good to keep mice out of the bandages or something?”

 

Zach blinks in surprise. The look on Chris’ face is an impressive combination of eager, hopeful, and pleading.

 

“I don’t know, Chris, she’s probably got fleas… and look-” he nods at the kitten, who has begun to mouth his pinky finger avidly, “-she’s not even weaned yet.”

 

The look of horror that crosses Chris’ face was unmistakable. “You mean… she’s just gonna die?”

 

Zach is suddenly seized with anger, burning his throat and cracking his words. “God, Chris, who knew you were such a softie? You’re a soldier, for God’s sake, what do you think happens? Did you get shot by a fucking BB gun?” The kitten squeaks, and he forces himself to calm down, to relax his grip. “Animals die, Chris. People die. Happens all the time. Strays, especially.”

 

The look on Chris’ face is pathetically tragic, and Zach feels a sudden deep stab of guilt. Who said it was up to him whether this kitten lived or not? He sighs, and relents. “Here.” He holds the kitten out, and Chris takes her wordlessly, cradling her in his tanned fingers. “Look, she’s at least six weeks old. She’d be weaned soon.”

 

He bends, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket and dipping a wadded corner in the milk pail, before holding it directly in front of the kitten’s mouth. The kitten sniffs once, then latches exuberantly onto the fabric, sucking enthusiastically and kneading at his knuckles with tiny paws.

 

“She could be useful…” Zach admits reluctantly.

 

“Mathilde.”

 

“What?”

 

“I was going to name her Matthieu. But…apparently not. So, Mathilde.”

 

Zach rolls his eyes. “You had already named it?” He hands the handkerchief to Chris, and hauls him over to sit on the stool. “Here. Fine. She’s your responsibility. Feed her like this every few hours for at least two weeks. Then you can start giving her mice from the traps, and see if she eats them. You’ll need to bathe her every week so she doesn’t bring fleas into the ward. Add a little wild onion to her food when she’s weaned, that’ll help too.”

 

Chris is staring at him, mouth open. “How the hell do you know all this?”

 

“Oh.” Zach laughs. “My grandparents farm. There were always barn cats around. You pick up a few things.” He waves a hand casually.

 

Chris eyeballs him with something approaching amused respect. “I see. So, if I were to bring home a stray horse, you’d know what to do?”

 

Zach laughs in earnest before pausing to think about that. Chris might, actually. “Well, first of all, please don’t. We can’t feed one.” He glares sternly, and Chris nods meekly. “But…yes, probably. Why did you think I’m the one in charge of cleaning any meat that comes in? I’m not the only who knows their way around an animal and a knife, but I’m the best at it. I spent a lot of time on the farm as a kid, more than most of you city folk.”

He grins as Chris’ mouth opens in protest. “I have to go. Time to make the rounds.” He wags a finger at Chris. “Keep her with you at all times. And bathe her today. Père Louis will have your hide if he finds fleas.”

 

Chris tosses off a two-fingered salute from the stool, the kitten soundly asleep in the palm of his hand, tiny belly stretched full.

 

“Oh, and Chris? Put the milk away.”

  


  
 

 

The bell is ringing for Vespers as Zach rinses his hands in the last dregs of the alcohol. The final surgery of the day had been a long one, excavating bits of shrapnel from the leg, side, and arm from a French soldier as he bled all over the table from a head wound. He wipes futilely at the smears of blood on his sleeves before giving it up for a bad job. He’s gotten it all out from under his nails, anyway, that’ll have to be good enough. The man’s prognosis isn’t very good, but they’ve done the best they can. It’s up to him and God now, and what ever saints or angels choose to intervene.

 

He reaches for the small pot of lanolin. Stuff smells like hell, but nothing else helps with the effects of repeated harsh alcohol on skin. He rubs it in thoroughly, taking a moment to appreciate being able to flex his knuckles without cracking the skin. The sound of murmured petitions filters through from the chapel, a low rumble of sound rising and falling in intensity. He bows his head, closing his eyes and bracing his hands on the shelf in front of him. He hasn’t been particularly religious, not since Tristan left, because what help had praying been then? But sometimes, in the midst of the dying and the bleeding and the living, it just seems inevitable to pause and plead with the universe for something, for anything, for everything.

 

A gentle cough echoes from near his shoulder, and he turns to see Chris standing a step behind him with a questioning expression on his face. “Did I bother you?”

 

Zach rubs a hand over his face. “No. Just… been a long day.”

 

He empties the last drop of the alcohol into the waste basin, dries the bowl with a cloth and lays it on the counter. He replaces the lid onto the jar of lanolin and sets it on the shelf before turning back to face Chris.

 

“Have you eaten yet?” Chris asks.

 

“No.” Zach shakes his head slightly. “Haven’t had time. Just finished up.”

 

“Good.” Chris smiles. There is something tentative about his face that catches Zach’s attention. “I’ve got something I want to show you. C’mon.”

 

Zach straightens slowly, reaching for his sweater. There’s a hole in the armpit- he’ll have to mend it later. Chris is already heading down the long nave, boot-steps ricocheting off the stone arches, hair green, then blue, then gold in the light of high windows. Zach hurries to follow him.

 

They pause outside the door to the sacristy, Chris’ hand hesitating on the door handle, his expression for once unreadable. “Do you know what today is?” Chris’ voice is low, but his eyes twinkle in the early winter dusk.

 

“Umm… Wednesday? No, Thursday.” Zach thinks for a moment. “Why?”

 

Chris pushes open the door without answering, leaving Zach to follow in his wake. He is clearly up to something, but Zach is just too tired to wonder what. He pulls himself up the steps, heading for his cot to take off his boots, figuring he’ll give dinner in the main hall a miss in favor of sleep, but is pulled up short as he comes fully into the room.

 

Chris is fidgeting slightly over to the side of the cramped space, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips. He can’t quite bring himself to meet Zach’s eyes.

 

“It’s Thanksgiving. I just thought… if you weren’t too tired… maybe we could pretend like things were… well, not normal, but you know… okay? For a while?” He runs his hand nervously through his hair. “I thought about asking you, but I just thought… it’d be more fun to surprise you? And I had the time to take care of it, and you’ve been so busy… but…I know you’ve had a really long day. If you just need to sleep, I understand…” His voice trails off into silence.

 

Zach finds himself still standing in the doorway. He forces himself to take in the scene before him carefully, trying desperately to memorize every detail. The cots have been pushed as far to the wall as possible, and a barrel stands on its end in the middle of the floor. The milking stool and a ladderback chair sit on opposite sides of the barrel, which is itself piled with a veritable feast. Bread, a full loaf, and a small block of cheese. Something that must have been potatoes, and leeks, and what even looked like…

 

“Butter?” Zach can hear his voice crack. “Chris, where in the name of all that is holy did you manage to find real butter?”

 

Chris’ face relaxes immediately into a smile of complete relief, and he moves again, removing Mathilde from his sling to sleep on the end of his cot, before taking the stool and pulling it up to the barrel.

 

“Traded for it in town. Still had some salt left from Le Havre, so…”

 

Zach slumps bonelessly into the chair, his mind spinning with fatigue and amazement. He can’t believe it- Chris must’ve been planning this for days. How he had even managed to pull it off is beyond him. He scrubs at his eyes with the back of his fist, and reaches carefully for the three-tined fork in front of him.

 

“God, Chris. This is…” He pauses, takes a breath. “This is incredible. This is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has done in… since…” He thinks for a minute. “Since the war started.”

 

Chris ladles some potatoes onto his plate, beaming like a lunatic. Zach takes a bite and closed his eyes in reverent pleasure. The potatoes have butter in them too; he can taste it in the way they melt on his tongue. He smiles blissfully, stretching mouth muscles too often unused in recent months.

 

“So, I was thinking.” Chris’ voice is muffled around a mouthful of bread and butter. “In my family, at Thanksgiving dinner, we always take turns saying what we’re grateful for.” He chews thoughtfully, his face crinkling as he concentrates. “So, I’m thankful for Mathilde. She’s such a sweetheart, and she’s going to grow up to be an amazing ratter, I just know it.” He throws a fond glance over at the tiny ball of fluff sleeping on his blanket.

 

Zach laughs, coughing around his own mouthful of bread. “The _cat_? You’re grateful for the _cat_?” He laughs again at the hurt expression Chris shoots his way. “Okay, okay,” he snickers, “I’m grateful for… mm, for the butter. I had forgotten what real butter was like.” He happily smears another glob onto the next piece of bread and shoves it into his mouth, licking a drop from his lip gleefully.

 

Chris nods in firm agreement, raising his tin cup in a toast. “To the butter.”

 

The cups make a light clink as they tap together. Zach can already feel the food beginning to settle into a ball in his gut, making him feel full and warm in ways he hasn’t in a very long time.

 

“I’m grateful for…having gotten my stitches out. Damn things itched.” Chris chuckles and scratches his shoulder in memory.

 

Zach nods, and thinks for a minute. “I’m grateful for Fleur. She means we eat better than most, and she keeps the grass down.” Zach raises his cup and clanks it again to Chris’.

 

“Mmm.” Chris chews slowly while Zach helps himself to the rest of the potatoes and half the wedge of remaining cheese. “I’m grateful for my family, even if they aren’t here. I know they’re thinking of me, or will be in ten hours or so at dinner anyway.” He smiles nostalgically. “I’m grateful for my sister, even though she used to pin me down and tickle me till I screamed when we were little.”

 

Zach snorts. “Okay, then, I suppose I’m grateful for my brother, who used to do the same damn thing.” They clink their cups again.

 

Finally Zach leans back in his chair, dropping his hands to his overly full stomach. They have demolished the entire feast, leaving only crumbs scattered on the end of the barrel as evidence of what had transpired. Chris pops open the top button of his pants and groans. He rolls his head loosely around on his neck, stretching the tendons and pushing on his chin with the palm of his hand to make the vertebrae pop. His expression grows suddenly serious, as he pushes himself forward to sweep the crumbs from the barrel top onto the plates and set them to the side.

 

He turns away for a minute, rustling in his coat pocket for something. Zach lets his head fall forward, struggling to keep his eyes open more than a slit. He hasn’t eaten this much in one sitting in over a year, at least, and his body is nearly comatose in its attempt to process the overload.

 

“Here.” Chris drops a packet of folded paper onto the table. “I want you to keep this for me.” The packet is small, tied with a light blue ribbon, grimy with dirt and water damage.

 

Zach picks it up, turning it over in his hand. The flaps have lost their stickiness, the edges dog-eared, but the American stamps are still visible. “Chris, what is this?” His eyes are questioning as he raises them to meet his friend’s.

 

Chris looks carefully away. “They’re all the letters my family has sent me, and the ones they sent me away with.” He rubs the back of his neck unconsciously, a low blush barely visible on his cheeks in the dim light. “And the ones I haven’t sent yet.” He leans suddenly forward, placing his elbows on the barrel and resting his chin on his hands. His eyes are earnest and luminously blue as they bore into Zach’s. “Zach… I have to go back. Marc heard in the town today that the Allied Powers have broken through and taken back a whole lot of ground, but they’ll never be able to hold it if they don’t have enough men. I’m healed now.” He spreads his arms wide in demonstration, then leans forward again, face serious. “The truck leaves in the morning. I’m to be on it.”

 

It’s Zach’s turn to look away. The lump of food in his stomach feels hard now, solid like a stone, and he rubs it with his hand in an attempt to loosen it.

 

“Zach…” Chris’ voice is quieter than Zach’s ever heard it. “I know it’s hard for you to send a patient you’ve saved yourself back out there, but this is war, this is how things are.” His eyes are pleading again, and Zach thinks suddenly of Chris begging him to keep the kitten, impossible in his earnestness. “Zach, this is how it is. You know this.”

 

Zach shakes his head in frustration. He’s not sure when Chris had grabbed his hand, but he pulls it away now and lifts the packet of letters instead. He handles them gingerly, hating their very existence. “What do you want me to do with them?”

 

Chris’ voice is soft. “Keep them. I’ll get them when I come back.” He stares at his knuckles. “And if I don’t, send them home. My parents’ address is on there.”

 

Zach sets both bundles back on the barrel between them. Touching them makes him feel ill, as though by acknowledging their presence he is acknowledging the possibility, no, the very likeliness of Chris’ death. He crosses his arms and looks away.

 

“Please.” The word is a breath, echoing in the silence of the room. Chris’ eyes are ice-blue and still.

 

Zach closes his eyes.

  


  
 

 

 

The early morning is freezing and dark, and Zach stands huddled next to the door as Chris finishes packing his gear. His pack is pitifully small- whatever kit he’d had when he was shot had not made the journey to Soissons with him, so all he has now is a change of clothes packed into a rucksack with some extra bread that Sr Marie-Claude has pressed into his hands.

 

“Wait.”

 

Chris turns at his voice, his raised eyebrow a question mark in the dim light. Zach steps reluctantly forward from under the eaves.

 

“Here. I was planning them for Christmas, but… you should just take them now.” He thrusts the wadded pile of cloth into Chris’ hands.

 

“A hat? And…socks?”

 

“Yeah. I thought of it when your head got shaved. It looked… cold.” Zach feels suddenly embarrassed. Why had he done it, anyway? Such a silly thing.

 

Chris’ smile shines out brilliant in the lamplight, and without warning Zach finds himself wrapped in a hug, surrounded by a warm body in a wool coat still smelling of mothballs. He stands shocked for a moment before he works up the presence of mind to lift his arms and hug the other man back. The embrace is warm, and solid, anchoring him to this moment, this reality, as the world spins remorselessly past. Chris’ breath is warm on his ear, flowing in and out, and for just a second Zach gives in to the impulse to just rest his head on Chris’ shoulder, feeling breath move through them both in the grey light of dawn.

 

“Hey.” Chris pulls back to look him in the eye. “Don’t look like that. I’ll come back.” He grins mischievously. “I’ve got Marie-Claude praying for me- if that won’t guarantee it, nothing will. Even God knows better than to mess with her.”

 

Zach just nods, not trusting himself to speak over the lump in his throat. All he can see in his mind is endless rivers of blood that have poured from every patient he’d had to care for, the utter void into which his every prayer seems to fall. He can’t imagine how this shows on his expression, but it must, because Chris raised one hand to stroke the side of his face.

 

“Hey. I mean it,” Chris says. Zach looks stubbornly away, folding his arms in silent refusal. Chris’ face is suddenly very close to his. “Take care of Mathilde for me.” There is a brief press of warm lips to his cheek, shocking him into stillness, and then he is gone into the dark. Zach can hear his boots clattering into the dark, and then the truck wheels turning on the cobblestones, and then he can’t hear anything anymore except the roaring in his ears.

 

 

 

 _26 nov 1917_

 

 _doesn’t mean much. or, really, anything at all._

 _news from the front is good so far- we received a wave of tommies yesterday, some in pretty bad shape, but they all said the same, that the push is successful. they are hopeful, even in pain. they smile at me as i change their sheets, shave their heads, stitch their flesh. i am too afraid to hope. my heart is in my throat, and i cannot swallow hard enough to move it._

 _overheard père louis praying last night. he prays for all, for the tommies, and the frogs and us yanks and even the hated krauts. surely if there is a God, if He is such that so many call to Him, cling to Him, if He is so worthy of our unending adoration, He cannot help but to hear a man such as that._

 _  
_

 

 

 _29 th nov 1917_

 _some days it just gets me. i can go for weeks, for months, ignoring the screaming, the stench, the never-ending flow of pain wrapped in skin that we call soldiers. i can even smile at the children in the streets, enjoy the sun on my face._

 _then there are the other days._

 _today was one of the other days._

 _marc sent me away after i slipped in a puddle of God-knows-what handing him a bone saw. we’re all sleep-deprived. there’s no blame- it hits us all at different times. i’m not needed till Vespers unless another ship of men comes in._

 _came back to my bunk. Started mathilde on meat yesterday- it may be early, but i don’t have the time to nurse her like Chris did. seems ok so far. i’ve been carrying her in my shirtfront since it’s been cold, and she’s still so little. she’s a very well-behaved petite mademoiselle, je peu dire._

 _been dreaming again. terrible, dreams, faces of every man i’ve ever laid hands on, every one who has died, but when i go to close their lids, their eyes are colored comme le ciel.  
comme ses yeux. _

_what the hell did he do to me? i didn’t know him a month, but i can’t leave him alone. why? why can’t i just do my job, why can’t i let him go? there is nothing about him that is any different from the thousands of other boys out there dying. why do I care? why must i persist in finding new ways to suffer? are not the usual ways enough?_

 __

1)Merci, mon ami, peut vous reposer en paix.” – “Thank you, my friend, may you rest in peace.”

2) “Gateau. Un petit morceau, un peu de chocolate, une cupcake.” – “Cake. A little piece, a little bit of chocolate, a cupcake”

3) _un seulement, s’il vous plait, **s’il vous plait**_.- “Only one, please, PLEASE”

4) _petite mademoiselle, je peu dire. –_ “Little lady, I can say”

5) _comme le ciel. comme ses yeux. –_ “Like the sky. Like his eyes.”

 


	4. Décembre

  
_ December 1917 _

__

 

 

 

 _2 nd dec 1917_

 _O Lord, may my flesh fall like water,_

 _My spirit be consumed_

 _Like grass before a flame._

 _May my heart be split asunder_

 _May my soul be rent_

 _May all that I am be sacrificed_

 _If only we may be delivered from the ravening mouth_

 _Of the rider who sits upon the red horse._

 __

__

The shells have been falling for three days without stopping. Now, though, they are closer.

 

It had seemed so good. He had arrived late at night, the recipient of much enthusiastic back-slapping in spite of his efforts not to wake his fellows.John was there, his brashness only heightened in the face of potential victory. George, too, with a new scar tracing his cheekbone. Sam, James, Joseph- all none the worse for the wear, or at least, none worse than could be expected. Frankie had been taken away at the same time as Chris, and word had it that he’d been shipped home with a broken leg and a head wound. The French unit they were paired with, drawn mostly from the towns of the Loire valley, had not been so lucky. “Fatigue,” Bruce had said, he face clenching into a grimace. “They’ve been fighting for nearly four years now. All their good men are gone, and the ones who are left are just exhausted. Why we’re here, isn’t it?” He shrugged fatalistically before whacking Chris between the shoulder blades. “Nice hat.”

 

Chris shudders as the ground in front of him erupts in a rain of mud and debris. He clenches his teeth, grasping his rifle grimly as he digs his elbows into the loose lip of the trench. He can hear screaming echoing from somewhere behind him, but he forces it to fade into the back of his mind. The best thing he can do is to focus, to keep Jerry as pinned back as he can until help comes.

 

His hat had been the subject of much comment from his fellows. It was a warm hat, and well made, and no one else had anything like it. The fact that he also had a spare pair of tight-knit socks to keep his feet drier than most in the frozen slush of the trenches made it impossible for their existence to pass unremarked.

 

“So, Chris, what’s her name?” John queried with a leer. “Does she have a sister?”

 

Sam laughed heartily, throwing his head back as he dealt the next hand. “C’mon, Chris, don’t leave us hanging. Was she lovely? Blond? Doe-eyed? Did she have great… assets?”

 

Chris could feel his ears begin to heat, their pinkened state fortunately hidden by the aforementioned head gear. He ducked his head. “No girl.”

 

“Come on, tell us another one!” John elbowed him in the ribs. “What, was she not mademoiselle, but a madame? Were you fishing in some frog’s pond?”

 

Chris frowned at the newly clean barrel of his rifle, then examined his cards for a third time. “No, really. No girl. No lady, madame or otherwise.”

 

He could hear Bruce tap his pipe clean, hear the puzzled expression in his voice. “Where did you get them, then? No one is fortunate enough to leave something like that lying in the street.” His lips clamped around the pipe stem, his grey eyes questioning.

 

Chris shrugged, pursing his lips as he fit the barrel back into the stock. “Some guy at the place I stayed.” He waved a hand vaguely.

 

“Wait, wait, wait. Just hold your horses for a minute here.” Sam gesticulated wildly in disbelief. “You mean to say you made enough of an impression on some doctor fellow that he gave you his own hat?” His eyebrows rose, making his plain face comical in its shock.

 

John made a rude hand gesture and laughed. “Who woulda guessed, boys? Our very own Chris has been in France for so long he’s gone native. So what’s his name, Chris? Your petit ami, your professeur de l’amour qui s’appelle ne parlait pas?” He guffawed and slapped his knee. “Tell me, was it the spoon-feeding or the sponge baths?”

 

A sudden stab of anger lanced through him, his cheeks flushing full red and his ears ringing. He snapped his rifle together and rose to his feet, turning and walking down the trench to the lookout post.

 

“Oh ho ho, look at that!” His buddies’ catcalls rang out behind him. “Tell us, Chris, was it love at first sight? Or did he have to work to make you bend over?”

 

The shells are falling all around now, an unceasing cacophony of noise, an untiring rain of mud, rock, and wood. He can hear Bruce’s voice from somewhere behind him, cracking as he bellows for a retreat at the top of his lungs. Chris aims his rifle carefully into the smog in front of him, firing once, twice, three times. He hears a shout, feels something grasp harshly at his arm. Then all is blackness.

 

Maybe, Chris thought, he would have been better able to take the boys’ ribbing if it hadn’t struck so close to home. Who was Zach to him, anyway? A nice guy. A friend who had happened to save his life. Someone he’d known for three weeks and some change. There was absolutely no reason for him to think that Zach was anything more than a good human being. And certainly there was no reason that Chris might want to think that there he could be, no reason to wish that they had had just a little bit more time. Was there?

 

 

He comes to when his head strikes the freezing metal at a particular angle, bruising his skull and forcing him to unwelcome consciousness, or at least a facsimile thereof. He tries not to move; most of his awareness is focused on various kinds of pain, throbs and spears of sensation which lance through his body. Another bounce throws him heavily against a metal wall again, and he hisses through his teeth.

 

He can tell that he is in a moving vehicle- probably a truck bed, if the smell of diesel and the stinging cold are any indication. The motor is loud, covering any other sounds which might give him a clue to his location. He waits for a moment, listening carefully and allowing small portions of the pain to recede, before he begins to work one eye open. His eyelashes have crusted over, whether with blood or condensation, he’s not entirely sure, but it takes a minute before he is able to crack his left lids far enough a part to get any sort of look around.

 

Army green is the first thing that meets the slit of his gaze, a weather-beaten sage canvas cover arching over his head. He blinks his eye and leans, squinting far enough to catch a glimpse out the back of the transport truck he’s riding in. Twilight. The sun has set, the last of the dying rays bleaching all the color from the frozen fields

 

He can see the puff of his breath, and with that, he becomes aware of how utterly, bone-chillingly, cold he is. He begins to shiver, noting distantly that it’s probably a good thing that he is still able to shiver, since it means he’s not yet into shock, but it is also inconvenient. The trembling alerts him to the location of the many different aches and pains riddling his body, but he bites down hard. He can’t afford the time to wallow.

 

Something’s wrong with his right arm, so he levers himself up to a sitting position with his left, bracing himself as best he can against the inevitable lurches as the truck jolts over the rutted road. Surveying his surroundings does nothing to reassure him. The truck around him is filled with men, some dead, some dying. He has no idea whether this is a truck bound for medical care or a truck bound for a burial ground, but he doesn’t feel inclined to take his chances. Every revolution of the tires beneath him takes him further behind enemy lines, away from his battalion, and away from Zach.

 

 _Zach._ Zach, whose fingers would be cool on his brow, strong if he wobbled. Zach, who was always quick to come when needed, who projects a constant air of careful diligence. Zach, who has the best possible laugh.

 

He’s lucid enough to realize that his inability to hang on to any sort of coherent focus is a likely indicator of concussion, but he knows somehow that he doesn’t have the time to worry about trying to keep his head still. First things first: he’s got to get out of here.

 

 

 _5 th dec. 1917_

 _and the rain drips. and the rain drips._

 _rain is falling all around, it falls on field and tree. it falls on the umbrellas here, and on the ships at sea._

 _i do wish it would stop._

 _6 th dec. 1917_

 _St._ _Nicholas Day today.all the children (that being not so very many, at this point) are gathered in the chapel of our lady to hear père louis tell tales of the Christ child. What will he tell them? of the lovely infant in the lowly manger? of a kindly saint dressed in fur who brings good children les petits cadeaux? what presents? is a bomb a present? a tiny figurine of a german soldier, while the real thing beats on their door?_

 _waves and waves of men in over the past few days. the krauts have taken back all of the land gained in the most recent push. terrible casualties. none of us have slept in days. i’m glad to not sleep. keeps me from dreaming. m'empêche de rêver de lui._

 _8 th dec 1917_

 _where is he? is he dead? is he buried? or in a field, sightless eyes to the sky? does the rain fall on his frozen face, this hateful freezing goddamn french rain?_

 _is he in l’hopital somewhere? we’re one of the closest- my throat seizes with every new soldier through the doors, expecting him and knowing it’s not him. is he under some murderous untrained doctor’s hand, doomed to an ignominious death under an overzealous scalpel, a dull blade slicing his life from his flesh, marking him as Death’s, instead of mine?_

 _is he alive? does he fight on?_

 _mathilde is a hungry little fiend. she licks the blood from my hairline when i miss it with the cloth, unconcerned and without any remorse. she is warm and she is fed, and beyond that, the world holds no allure for her._

 _there is a pair of friends here now. no one speaks of this, but everyone knows. a frog and a tommy, germaine et david. david is rather gravely injured. he’ll probably make it, if he can avoid infection. if. germaine is not bad off- a broken leg. he sits by david’s bedside day and night. i ignore the look on his face._

 _i hear the clatter of wagons on pavement, bringing us more wounded. we are out of beds._

 

 

Chris wakes up well past dark, and really, this periodic passing out only to wake up cold and in pain has got to stop. He remembers the truck- he’d managed to wrest a woolen coat off a body near him, rolling the dead man over with his foot to pull the garment free. He’d hated doing that, disturbing the dead, but the fact was that this man didn’t need it anymore, and he did. He’d gotten his good arm in, wrapped the rest of it around himself as best he could. None of the other living men in the back with him are in any condition to stop him or even speak, their unconscious heads lolling on their shoulders. He’d waited till the first star was showing over the horizon, bright and clear in the frosty dusk, making his way to the edge of the truck bed by climbing over and across the pile of still bodies, some still breathing, some cooling and stiff. They were all prisoners, he supposed, but some were already free. He was listening intently for voices, for anything, but heard nothing. Eventually, deciding he’d rather die falling than freezing, he’d flung himself over the tailgate of the truck and onto the frozen ground rolling past.

 

It had knocked the wind out of him, but he had scrambled to a crouch and half-run, half-slid into the ditch by the side of the road before holding perfectly still, ears straining to hear any notice of his escape. Nothing stirred in the dark, even as he waited on frozen feet as minutes ticked by.

 

Eventually he decided that he was safe, or as safe as he could be from that specific truck. If they noticed his absence, it would probably not be till morning. In the meantime, he’d better get moving.

 

He looked up at the sky, silently thanking the universe for the clear view he now had of the north star. He had no idea how far he’d been taken, but if he was in German territory, which seemed pretty damn likely, then anything he wanted to be near was going to be southwest of wherever he was now.

 

He had pulled the coat tight around him and struck off, marching along the road in the pitch black night, heading ever westward.

 

When dawn broke, he pulled himself off the road, heading for a nearby stand of trees. The snow was not especially deep, but there were some windfallen branches that made a nice discreet shelter in the lee of one of the larger beeches. He wouldn’t be noticeable from the road, and probably not to a foot patrol. Dogs were another matter, but if they had dogs, he was pretty fucked anyway, so no point in worrying about it now. He rearranged the branches, piling some snow around for insulation and crawling in, wrapping himself as best he could in his stolen coat and sliding almost immediately into the dreamless sleep of the completely exhausted.

 

 

It’s night when he awakens, and his mind feels a bit clearer than before. Memories are still all fuzzy for him, but he feels more equipped to carry a single thought forward than he did when he fell asleep.

 

Water is his first concern, so he begins placing small amounts of snow in his mouth periodically, spacing them out so as not to compromise his body temperature. Food is also a concern, but a somewhat less pressing one, and also not one he can do anything about right now. Moving is the third, and so he pulls himself carefully out of his makeshift shelter, huddling deep into his coat as the force of the evening breezes hits him, ripping heat away from his body into the dark shadows of the forest behind.

 

Travel. It’s a problem, all right. He can’t stay on the road too easily, or risk being caught unaware by headlights. He can’t go too near any towns for similar reasons; dogs, drunks, and the other folk who loiter on the edges of civilization. But he has to move, and he has to figure out where he is. He can’t make any sort of plan for getting out when he doesn’t know where, exactly, he’s getting out of.

 

So, for now, he walks. One foot in front of the other, skirting the edge of the forest, sliding between patches of shadow and shade, snow crunching rhythmically underfoot. South, and west, and south again, slipping slowly into the darkening night.

 

 

 _10 th dec 1917_

 _frost crystals on the stained glass this morning. tres belle in the morning sunlight.Mater Maria looks iced, like a sugar cookie. a gingerbread saint._

 _would you eat her head first? seems sacrilegious either way…_

 _germaine is an artist. he sketches as he sits by david. men. beds. mathilde. sometimes he shows me. his english is… not the best, but he insists on using it, for practice. david speaks no french._

 _D is not one of mine, but i checked him today when G insisted. he’s not well; there are red lines radiating out from his wound, and i could hear the fluid in his lungs. not much to be done._

 _i didn’t say that to them._

 _mathilde caught two rats this week. Even marc is impressed, given the rats were as big as she was._

 _12 th dec 1917_

 _marc has finished with carving the replacement pawn for his chess set. he sits sometimes beside G and D and plays. G and marc are about equally matched; D, when he’s awake, advises._

 _today i joined them. it’s been a long time since i last played- my father taught joe and me as kids, but i lost interest years ago._

 _watching them together is strange. discomfiting. it’s…not unheard of,someone who never marries, but lives with their special friend for all of their lives. but it is not discussed. and in the cities, there are the places that you go if you keep a certain kind of company. this is no secret. but…_

 _but._

 _the way they look at each other, to each other… in public… i have to turn my face away. i have never seen such, and i do not know what to think._

_ père louis had to have words in private with one of the doctors; he was making no secret of his… distaste…for their conduct. several of the other men feel likewise, and have refused to associate with either of them, casting looks, insults. they call it an abomination for men, for soldiers, to act so, especially in a house of God.  _

__

_ unnatural. sick. abomination. _

__

_ père louis says ça t’est égal, and that if it helps david to have germaine next to him, then it shall be so. _

_there is no word from the fronts. i refuse to think of him._

 

Dawn is beginning its march into the eastern horizon when Chris hears it, the long bleat of a whistle in the dark. It can’t be more than a mile away, he’s sure of it, and he grins with the knowledge that if he can reach the tracks, his chances will get a lot better real fast.

 

It takes him an hour- he’s started stumbling as he walks, his feet leaden at the end of his legs. He’s done what he could to prevent frostbite; chafing his fingers and toes vigorously every time he stops, regardless of the pain of returned circulation. But it’s not perfect. And it’s cold.

 

The tracks are blessedly far from any towns, as far as Chris can tell. It’s still all forest and field that he can see, and there are no tell-tale spirals of smoke winding their way into the paling sky. He nearly trips on the tracks when he gets to them, the cold iron stretching endlessly into the distance. It’s open here on the rails, and it makes him nervous. There’s no help for it, though. Out here the trains will be moving too fast, speeding along to their destinations. His hopes of catching one are slim at best, and he needs better odds than that.

 

He walks. His best bet is to get near a town, and then to catch a train just as it leaves the station. Tracks will lead to a town, eventually. And then… well, one step at a time.

 

He runs into the outskirts of a town around midday, and the intrusion of civilization is nearly shocking after two days in the silence of the countryside. He can hear the sounds of engines, of horses, of people. It all seems so normal; it’s hard to process the actual danger he’s in, not just from cold or starvation, but from the rest of humanity on this side of an arbitrary line. He sneaks into a barn just outside the edge of the village proper, stealing a horse blanket and taking a long drink from the trough. The rootcellar of another house yields some hard wintry carrots and a jar of pickled beets. He feels guilty at the theft; it’s not like anyone has much to spare right now, on either side. But he’s not especially interested in starving to death either, so he squashes the impulse to go knock on the door and apologize.

 

The train yard is guarded, naturally, but not too heavily. He waits and watches for an hour, hoping to understand some sort of pattern for arrivals or departures, and to find out where he is. He’s hoping to still be in occupied France; it’s certainly possible, the German’s have enough of it at this point. But he has no idea how long he was passed out in the pack of the prisoner transport. For all he knows, he’s deep in the heart of the Fatherland.

 

The sign on the building, when he creeps around behind a shed and gets a look at it, says Albstadt Banhoff in freshly applied black paint. The hard vowels and clipped consonants tell him more surely than any map could that he has moved beyond the sibilant borders of France.He feels the fear clench in his gut, slippery fingers of ice winding their way through his adrenal gland.

 

Fuck. Germany.

 

He takes a moment, breathes slowly and carefully. It’s the middle of the day, and he’s got to get somewhere hidden. Preferably on a train.

 

Slinking down the tracks gets him back to the edge of town, but, he judges, still close enough to hop on a train before it picks up too much speed and he risks being thrown under the churning wheels. At this point, he decides, it doesn’t much matter which train he gets on- either it will be heading back to Allied territory, carrying the necessary trade stuff to which rules of engagement do not apply, or it will head deeper into occupied territory. Which, yes, would be bad, but would no doubt take him to a hub, where he can get on a train out.

 

There are negatives to this plan, of course. On a train, when they do searches, he is a bit of a sitting duck. If the guards have guns, and if he’s found, running is really not going to do a lot for him.

 

On the other hand, hopping the trains beats the hell out of trying to walk back to Soissons without either starving or freezing.

 

Trains it is.

 

He doesn’t have that long to wait. It’s not more than twenty minutes, he thinks, before the rails begin their characteristic singing, the tones of the vibrating metal carrying through the frigid air. He creeps close to the tracks, waiting in the bushes that line the clearing. It’s no good if the conductor sees him; he has to wait until the last possible moment before jumping forward and grabbing the side of a car.

 

He waits, and waits, and just when he thinks it’s too late, he leaps, fingers stretching and flexing, popping at the joints, the jar of beets thumping hard against his hip, and then he’s flying, hanging for a brief moment above the speeding metal before he regains the presence of mind to haul himself up, hooking a knee over the edge of the open car and heaving until he can pull himself forward on his belly, the damp slipperiness of his wool coat easing his way across the wooden floor of the car.

 

He looks around warily, but luck is apparently with him today; the car he’s picked is nearly empty, save for a few barrels in a corner. The openness of the space makes him feel a bit exposed, but at least he didn’t haul himself into a car full of soldiers.

 

A feeling of utter exhaustion takes him suddenly and he crawls over to the corner, shoving the barrels out of the way and into a curved line. If he squeezes in behind them, it creates a wind break, and hides him from the line of sight of anyone doing a casual check of the car. It won’t do much if they decide to climb in and search, but it’s the best he can do for the moment, so he presses into the corner and pulls the horse blanket up over his head, closing his eyes and falling deeply asleep.

 **  
**

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 

 

 _15 th dec. 1917_

 _david died last night. the infection was too much for his malnourished system. germaine is with père louis._

 _i pulled the sheet over his face. tout ce que je pouvais voir, c’etait son visage._

 _lui toujours._

 _it’s been too long. he has been gone too long.i cannot continue to hope._

 _Requiescat in Pace._

 _18 th dec. 1917_

 _i just… i…_

 _i can’t._

 _there is a lull. fewer and fewer men._

 _i have stopped checking their faces._

 

 

He wakes as the sun is setting, and feels a sinking in his stomach as he watches the sun in the west grow steadily farther away.

 

This train is going east.

 

He shifts, and the jar of beets clanks against his ribs from where it’s lodged deep in one of his coat pockets. The pockets of air inside his blanket are nearly warm, and he burrows deeper under, extracting the carrots from his overcoat and thrusting one into his mouth. The taste bursts across his tongue, acrid and sweet, the burn of an under-grown root vegetable arcing its way through his mouth.

 

It feels strange to chew, stranger still to swallow, but he does, slowly and carefully. One carrot is enough, for now. He doesn’t want to rush things. He’s lost count of how long it’s been since he ate, but he knows with some surety that it’s been long enough that he’d better take it slow.

 

The sun across the snowy fields is beautiful, bathing the world in vermillion and orange. It looks as though at any moment the ice might burst into flame, and Chris feels himself sliding into a trance as the train bounces rhythmically along. He shakes his head hard, blinking and forcing himself into awareness. Sleeping would be nice, but he must be nearing a hub soon, and he’ll need as many wits as he can gather to make sure he manages to find himself a way back.

 

The train begins to slow several hours after dark. It’s been passing through towns for a while now, an interesting change after so many hours of nothing but forest and plain. They’d crossed a big river just around dusk, the rolling waters visible through the slats of the train bridge, black and primeval in the twilight. Chris had scooted to the edge of the car and hung his head over the edge to stare down at the water. He didn’t know what river it was, but it was like nothing he’d ever seen, he was sure of that. The rivers at home were slow and shallow, sunlit and sluggish in their courses. Even the Seine, though she was larger, moved with a certain passivity through her towns, watering the fields with a soft benevolence. This river was different; old, and powerful, swollen with winter rains and iced at the edges, full and heavy with frigid water. He watched it until the darkness swallowed it whole, the last glint of moonlight on its surface shading to black.

 

The train yard, when they pull in, is empty of people and full of trains. He waits till the train has slowed to nearly a stop, then leaps as soundlessly as possible off the car, dropping and rolling down the embankment. He has wrapped the blanket over his head, hoping to disguise and telltale reflections of light on the pale skin of his hands and face. He waits barely breathing.

 

Nothing.

 

He waits a little longer, then begins to pick himself up, moving as silently as possible in his makeshift cloak, weaving his way through the maze of engines and cars toward the light, ears pricked for the sound of feet or voices.

He makes it over to the conductors’ station. The window is lit, and peering through the glass he can make out the shapes of several men talking and laughing. The scent of cigar smoke wafts through the damp air, and he shivers.

 

Next to the door of the station is a list on a clipboard. The paragraph at the top is in German, but the lists of destinations and loading platforms is easy enough to decipher.

 

Wien- 1A.

Poznan- 2A.

Krakowa- 3B.

Vaduz- 2C.

Luxembourg- 1C.

 

Ahah. Luxembourg. Not perfect, but it should get him close enough. He has no idea where he is now, Switzerland, perhaps, or maybe close to the Austrian border. Either way, a train to Luxembourg will get him back into France. And that will get him closer to… Soissons. And Zach. To that strange, elusive, but persistent feeling that if only he can get back, if only he can see him, touch him, be near him again, that all of this will fall away, and he will be left, made new and restored in the other man’s presence.

 

He replaces the clipboard carefully on its nail, taking a moment to look around, then slides into the darkness in the direction of platform 1C.

 

It’s a long train, mostly bucket cars, some empty, some full. Near the end he finds an open boxcar and climbs in, pulling himself into a corner behind some crates. He waits, listening, to make sure that the only sound is his own breath as it whispers against the metal, then pulls the blanket over his head and sinks into oblivion.

 

 

 _21 st dec 1917_

 _today was the day we were to bury david. Instead we found germaine hanging from a rafter._

 _he must have done it around dawn, when père louis was leading the service. he must have been quick, too. bastard._

 _it’s cast a pall. we’ve had death after death, but this is the first by a man’s own hand. voices are subdued, both of the men and the staff._

 _i’m sitting with them now. david is stiff in the cold; he’s been here three days. germaine is still warm, though his hands are cooling._

 _this is the thing about dead bodies- they do not look like they are sleeping. there is no breath, no motion; no twitch of eyelash, no spasm of digital muscle. they are inanimate in the truest sense of the word._

 _first the skin pales. circulation ceases. blood pools where gravity pulls it. skin loosens, chills, becomes like wax. eyes stare, mouths gape, until we in our mortal horror close them._

 _i do not know germaine’s intent; whether he believed they would be together in heaven or hell, or whether he simply could not live alone?_

 _if it was the second, then he has surpassed his goal._

 _if the first, then i cannot say._

 

 

He wakes abruptly when the train begins to move, flailing wildly and hitting his fist on the side of a crate, biting back a curse.

  
“Easy, there.”

 

He jumps, his eyes wide with fear at the voice. Turning his head, he finds himself face to face with a man, bearded and gaunt, but smiling at him from the other side of the crate wall he’s crouched behind.

 

“Don’t worry, old chap. We’re in the same boat, you and I.” The man grins, showing an expanse of toothless gum. “Escapin’, right?”

 

Chris nods wordlessly, still fighting back the initial surge of adrenalin at the man’s presence. He unclenches his fists, smoothing his hands over his knees. It’s past dawn now, and the train is moving steadily, the clatter of the rails a soothing monotone beneath them. “Yes, I…” He coughs, swallows. His voice is rusty with disuse. “I’m trying to get back to France.”

 

“Yank, huh? Trying to get back to France?” The man tips his head curiously, his brown eyes catching the light and shining in a brief echo of that pair he remembers so well. “What’s in France, Sammy-boy?”

 

Chris turns his face away. The countryside is rolling past at a good clip; farmhouses and outbuildings, cows and sheep and goats.

 

“My division. The frontlines.” He sighs. “A friend.”

 

He turns back, eyeing the stranger. British, clearly, though his uniform is in nearly unrecognizable tatters. His beard is long, but wispy, and Chris runs his hand absently over his own inch long reddish-blond scruff. He’s thin to the point of near emaciation, and marked with the dirt of long traveling. “This train goes to Luxembourg, right? How safe are we? What do we need to do?” The panic begins to rise in his throat now that there someone to express it to, and he forces it down as firmly as he can.

 

The other man muses for a moment, thin fingers wrapping and pulling at his beard. “Well, we’re safe enough for the moment. We’re nearly to Austria, though we’re heading northeast now.” His voice trails off thoughtfully. “We’ll most likely cross territories near the Swiss border; the trains can’t just stop, you know- there’s too much that goes on in the world for commerce to just freeze. But what they can do is search them all.” He shifts his position, huddling deeper into the tattered remains of his coat. “You’ve picked a good ol’ train, righto. She’s got bucket cars of potatoes, and that’s what’ll be our salvation.” He nods. “Come nightfall, we’ll be getting close to the line, and we’ll crawl down the train to the potatoes. If we bury ourselves deep enough, we should be safe- it’s still dangerous, mark my words, but it’s the safest we can be.”

 

He settles himself against the wall, folding his stick-like legs in front of him. “Best get some sleep while we can.”

 

Chris’ mind is still stuck on the thought of climbing down the moving train, but he opens his blanket wordlessly, barely noticing the grateful grimace of the other man as he crawls into the slightly warmer fold of the car.

Sleep. Sleep is good.

 

They wake an hour or so before sunset, shifting positions and sharing a small meal of two more of the wooden, acrid carrots. His companion is less than talkative; Chris thinks he must have been on his own for a while. His name, it appears, is Eddy, and he’s from somewhere near Birmingham. This much Chris gets out of him before he falls terminally silent, watching the passing countryside with a unshakeable determination.

 

The view is the same interminable field and tree that is has been for all the days that Chris has been traveling. He’s lost track, if he ever knew, of how long he’s been gone. It must be near midwinter, he thinks; the setting sun is very far south in the sky, and it can’t be much past four o clock, if at all, in spite of the fact that the red sphere is flattening like a cracked egg on the horizon line.

 

Midwinter. Nearly Chrismas, then.

 

He’s gripped with a sudden grief then, a wretched pulling in his throat as he thinks of his family at home. For all he knows, they think him dead in the battle. For all he knows, Zach thinks him dead in the battle. Have they decorated the tree? Are the candles shining in all the windows? His mother will go with his sister to Christmas Eve mass, the small mission style church surrounded by palm trees in the winter dusk, the evening star low on the horizon. The next morning there will be presents, and food, and laughter, and joy. He can smell the tree, hear their voices. The sound of his sister singing carols, his mother telling stories. His father, reading from Luke. Pere Louis, singing the mass. Zach laughing quietly in the dark.

 

Does Zach miss him? Think of him at all? He wants to reassure himself that he’s not so easily forgotten, but the weight of the past few days is heavy, pulling him into a sense of total loss. He longs for Zach with an abrupt intensity, a pain in his gut that surpasses the fist of hunger, making his eyes water with a sudden, deep-seated longing just to see Zach’s face again.

 

The train hits a sudden bump, and he’s jolted from his thoughts hard enough to bruise.

 

“Come now.” Eddy’s voice is hushed. “It’s near dark enough, and we’re getting close to civilization. We’d best make our move.”

 

If he weren’t so tired, Chris is sure he’d be more afraid, but as it is, it seems perfectly reasonable to maneuver himself out of the top of the train car and onto the slippery roof.They have wrapped their hands in bits of the wool blanket, which gives them some purchase on the frosty metal, but this was never going to be anything be incredibly dangerous.

 

They are four cars from their goal; he can see the bucket cars down the line, each filled withan indistinguishable mass of brown lumps. Only four cars, Chris thinks. Four. A nice round number. Only four cars to climb down between, then back up, then across. Four. They can do this.

 

The first two cars are as easy as they could be; they are slick, but manageable, and the ladders between them are easily gripped and navigated. They cross the tops on hands and knees with no great incident, and Chris is beginning to breathe again, thinking that perhaps this will be better than he thought. The train is not moving particularly fast, and though the light is starting to fail, the bucket cars seem much closer now.

 

The third car is not quite as easy. The light is nearly gone now, a bank of clouds having begun to move in from the northeast, and for whatever reason, this car is slicker than the previous two. Chris is in the lead, and he inches across practically on his belly. His heart is racing, and he can’t begin to decide if he’s more afraid of falling or of getting caught.

 

He’s about three feet from the end and the comparative safety of the ladder when the train gives a lurch, and begins to pick up speed. The unexpected momentum throws him flat, and he skids forward, instinctively reaching his hands out to grab at anything, anything that might stop his forward slide.

 

His hands close on the top rung of the metal ladder and he clutches it, clinging with all his strength as gravity pulls him heels over head until his back slams into the ladder behind him with a whoosh of breath. He sees stars, but scrabbles madly with his feet until he is standing on the rungs and can relax the death grip his fingers have on the uppermost bar.

 

He stands and breathes for a moment. His back hurts, but he almost doesn’t notice. His head is clear though his knees are shaking, and it’s not until Eddy’s round eyes appear over the edge of the car that he realizes quite how close a call that was.

 

There’s no time to dwell on it, though; the night is ever darkening, and he can smell the smoke of many chimneys on the wind. They’re closing on the border fast. He steps across to the next ladder, hauls himself up and over, and pulls himself across the roof of the last car.

 

The stars are out, pinpoints of light in the hazy night as he reaches the far end and climbs down the last ladder and up the next. He’s reached the top of the ladder and is leaning forward to lower himself down, when the train gives another lurch and he’s thrown forward into the potatoes. There’s a shout from behind him, and he lurches upright in horror, scrambling to the edge in time to see as Eddy hits the ground, bouncing as he rolls down the embankment.

 

Chris feels the shock curl itself around him, and he knows with an abject and horrific certainty that it is too late, that there is nothing he can do. Even if he were to throw himself from the train now, the likelihood that the man has survived the fall is slim to none. And what would Chris do? Where would he take a grievously injured Brit in the edge of Central Power territory?

 

He sinks back into the potatoes, and begins to methodically bury himself as deep in the middle of the car as he can. The roots are like small rocks, frozen solid and painful. He wraps himself in the blanket and burrows deeper, wrapping his heartsick frame in the filthy stillness of the train car as he draws ever nearer the border.

 

 

 _24 th dec 1917_

 _in the bleak midwinter/frosty wind made moan/earth stood hard as iron/water like a stone._

 _true enough here._

 _we cannot use the chapel for mass. david and germaine are still at rest. or, if you want to be realistic about it, there are dead bodies on the altar._

 _it’s not just them, really. we’ve been holding several for a while, waiting for the ground to thaw for just a day, to try and get a hole dug for them._

 _we can’t wait much longer. the saints awaiting burial are crowding out the saints awaiting to bury._

 _listen to me. mocking, joking. have I fallen so far? am i truly to the point that i can sit here, holiest of nights even to those of us who are stretching the fingers of the church’s grasp, and mock the number of dead?_

 _Christ preserve me._

 _27 th dec 1917_

 _Our God, Heaven cannot hold him/nor Earth contain._

 _i pray for him every night._

 _oh God, in whom i want so desperately to believe, and of whom i have seen too little to trust, you who are so supposedly mighty, so beyond the constraints of “heaven” and earth, have pity. have mercy. grant his soul eternal rest._

It took two more days before he saw the sign for Nancy and jumped. He would have liked to get further, but he didn’t know where the border stood at the moment, and he couldn’t risk crossing lines again.

 

Crossing the border into France had been risky- he could hear the soldiers, the guards as they talked, inspecting all the boxcars, thumping the sides of the bucket cars to make sure there were no hollow spots where someone might hide.

 

He’d burrowed as deep as he could without being crushed by the weight above him, and lay still and silent, begging with frozen lips to be passed over. The guards had shoved bayonets into the potatoes, hoping to jab anyone hiding into revealing himself. It had nearly worked; one of the blades had caught his shoulder, but he’d bit his lip nearly through rather than scream, and the guards had moved on.

 

Now he is safe, in a manner of speaking; he’s on the correct side of the battle lines, and that alone makes his continued survival much more likely. But he is still in uniform, which means he could be caught and accused of desertion at any moment, and he’s still more than a hundred miles from Soissons and safety.

 

The only way to proceed is one step at a time, so he ties a tourniquet around his arm and sets out to perform the necessary tasks to get him back to safety (to Zach). The first thing to do is to discard his uniform; after much searching, he manages to steal a change of clothes from an abandoned shelled building. They don’t fit well; the pants are too large, and the shirt too small, but they’ll do. He still has the dead man’s coat and the horse blanket, and so he sets out.

 

Transportation is next; if he tries to walk to Soissons, he’ll never make it. His toes are bad, he knows. He hasn’t looked, but the prolonged numbness can’t be a good sign, and it’s making his limp painful. Hitching is not a good way for him to stay out of the sight of the military officials. He’s done with trains for a while.

 

The answer to his dilemma comes in the form of an untended bicycle, left leaning against a leeward wall of an alley in the nice part of town; he feels a pang of remorse, but it’s brief. He hops on quickly, pedaling off before the owner can spot him, heading for the road he knows lead north east.

 

It is a week and a half of pedaling at night and sleeping in hedgerows by day. Several times the bombs drop, and he flings himself into a ditch, huddling in the brackish water with his hands over his head, praying not to be incinerated on the spot. The sky is wide open above him, and he feels hunted, exposed to the eyes of any who choose to look. His breath comes quick and sharp in his chest, and he heaves uselessly, his muscles locking up in spasm as spot swim in his vision, panic consuming the calmer bits of his mind.

 

He can tell in moments of sharper lucidity that he’s starting to get in a bad way. His toes are still there, as far as he can tell, but only just. His hands are cracked and dry, and though the bayonet gash in his shoulder seems to be remaining uninfected, it aches and throbs and refuses to heal as he bumps along on the bicycle.

 

He’s fixated now, unquestioningly. The paranoia leaves him, and he breathes the frozen air in spades, gasping it into his lungs to purify himself.

 

 _Zach_.

 

He is attuned to Soissons like an astrolabe to the north star, a pendulum to the earth at the apex of its swing, pointing ever westward in search of his friend.

 

 

 

1) Your petit ami, your professeur de l’amour qui s’appelle ne parlait pas?”- “your little friend, your teacher of the love whose name is not spoken?”

2) _petits cadeaux-_ little presents

3) _m'empêche de rêver de lui-_ keeps me from dreaming of him 

4) _ ça t’est égal-  _ it’s all the same to him

5) _ tout ce que je pouvais voir, c’etait son visage. lui toujours.-  _ all that I can see, it’s his face. Always him.

 


	5. Janvier

  
_ January 1918 _

  


 

 _2 nd jan, 1918_

 _a new snow for a new year. beautiful, white, pure._

 _too bad it’s only the surface. but that’s all it ever is, isn’t it? beneath the white we freeze, then thaw, then rot._

 _we’ll bury our dead tomorrow. the ground is frozen solid, but it’s not likely to thaw any time soon, and we’re running out of space._

 _what do you call a bunch of dead bodies? a cluster of corpses?a surfeit of stiffs?delegation of the deceased?mob of morbids?_

 _a party of the passed away?_

 _4 th jan, 1918_

 _they are at rest, but i am maudlin. and cold._

 _it took us hours, marc and i, to dig the graves. hours in the freezing air, sweating at the work. as it is, we could only get so deep. we’ll have to dig them back up in the spring and rebury them properly. but in the meantime, they are out of the chapel, and they are deep enough to not be disturbed for a month or two._

 _i buried david and germaine in the same grave. i told marc it was for expediency’s sake, but he knows better. still, he let me have my lie._

 _i didn’t know them well, but better than i’ve known the rest of my patients. with one exception. but I think it’s what they would want._

 _it’s what i would want, if i had the choice._

 _6 th jan, 1918_

 _i tried to wash him away. wash memory like dirt as i scrubbed my hands after digging the graves. i buried them, and i tried to bury him. he won’t go. out of my head, off of my hands. dirt is under my nails still, and i hope again._

 _i am a goddammed romantic, and if i could kill that piece of myself, i would._

 _why? why can’t I let him go? let go ses yeux, son rire. son sourire. he is dead, he must be. dead. as cold as the corpses i have held in my hands, taken beyond cold, beyond fear, beyond any feeling at all. yet he haunts me._

 _ill-compassioned ghost._

 _Epiphany today. was, rather. late, now. beds are full and quiet; darkness holds sway. père louis, who not three hours ago spoke of the sacredness of the journey, the travel of the magi who braved privation and fear to cleave to the one who held their future in his hands, is long abed and snoring. marc and the others, asleep in our little room._

 _i take the night watch by choice; sleeping during the day means less dreaming. less not-sleeping._

 

 

The knock on the chapel side-door is so quiet that Zach doesn’t hear it at first. It comes louder, and he looks around in surprise, thinking first that someone on the ward is stirring. He sets his book down and stands, taking a first step toward the beds, when it comes again.

 

The door. Who could be at the door? It’s, he checks his pocketwatch, past three in the morning. There’s a sudden sinking in his gut as fear settles in. Is something wrong? Are the Germans on the move? Do they need to run?

 

Is this the beginning of the end?

 

He strides swiftly to the small door, unlatching the squealing bolt and flinging the door open. A gust of frozen air floods in, flickering the candles at the altar and making him shiver as he peers out into the night.

 

“Who’s there?”

 

It is hardly bright inside the chapel, but the moonless night is so dark that he doesn’t see the figure at first, wrapped as it is in a dark blanket and with a battered hat pulled down nearly to his eyes.

 

His blue eyes.

 

Zach feels it in his knees first, as they want to buckle beneath him, then in his ribs as his heart comes to a standstill. All the blood in his body rushes to his chest, making him sway with a sudden dizziness as his brain struggles to reconcile the sight in front of him.

 

Chris chooses that moment to take a staggering step toward him, and suddenly Zach can move again, can fling himself forward and under Chris’ outstretched arm as he begins a slow-motion collapse. He gets an arm around Zach’s neck as Zach lifts him effortlessly and pulls the door shut.

 

He can feel Chris’ gaunt frame begin to tremble in the comparative warmth of the chapel, and pauses for a second, thinking. He holds Chris to him instinctively, bending close in an attempt to warm the other man, clutching him against his chest. He weighs far less than he should, and it’s little effort for Zach to carry him into the small priest’s office off the nave. There is a fireplace there, and Zach deposits him carefully on the hearth, as close to the actual coals as he dares. Chris leans in, huddling, as Zach pokes the banked embers urgently, laying tinder and small logs on the pile and blowing, coaxing first one, then two, three licks of flame to rise up from the base.

 

Chris scoots closer to the flames, and Zach yanks the blankets from the low couch, flinging them around his shoulders, spiraling into a flurry of movement.

 

The tin tub is in the kitchen. He runs to grab it, seizing it from its place by the back door and stepping through the doorway with it. The night is gaspingly cold, the wind whipping around the corners of the stone building, and Zach shivers mightily as he scoops the tub through a snow drift, filling it to the brim with fresh, white snow. He packs it down, scoops again, pressing until the tub is full. Heaves it in his arms and rushes back through the door and into the office, his eyes landing on Chris’ form with a sense of vast relief. Where he thought Chris would go, he’s not sure, but just the sight of that familiar frame in the glow of the fire calms him, centers him.

 

He sets the tub of snow in the edge of the coals, pulling several heating panners out of the fire and placing them in the tub to speed the melting. The large kettle is already full, so he swings it over the flames, poking the fire again and again until it roars in the small room.

 

Chris watches him in silence, his eyes fogged with weariness, his face still.

 

Zach can’t even begin to formulate sentences, with their subjects and objects and tenses and verbs, so he takes Chris’ legs in his hands, stretching them out from where he’s got them huddled to his chest. His boots are still in relatively passable condition, but Zach has seen frostbite before, and so he steels himself as he begins to unknot the laces, dexterous fingers working patiently at the tie until it loosens and falls in his hands.

 

The left boot is first; a gentle pull that makes Chris blanch and it’s off, revealing a soaked and frosted sock. One that he knit, he thinks, and he meets Chris’ passive gaze for a second before easing the sock down past the fine-boned ankle and off the end of the foot.

 

It is not as bad as he feared, and he breathes an internal sigh of relief. The littlest toe is in the worst shape, red and blistered and oozing, but Zach thinks they can all be saved. He may lose some sensation, but that’s all right. One can live without feeling every inch of one’s toes; it is not such a sacrifice.

 

He takes the foot in his hands, wrapping the frozen metatarsals in his warm hands, hearing the breath hiss from between his friend’s teeth as the blood begins its painful recirculation. He does not rub, knowing the skin is too tender by far for any friction, but moves his hands gently up and down, exposing the purpled flesh to the heat of his hands and the quickly warming room.

 

The snow in the tub is melted now, and beginning to hiss, while the kettle is bubbling with heat from the flames. He pulls the other leg forward, massaging the laces until they give, pulling first the boot, then the sock free. He bites his lip. This foot is worse. The last two toes are shrunken and black, while the remaining three are blistered and raw. They must hurt abominably, but Chris gives no sigh. He is in emotional, if not physical, shock, Zach knows, and he seems content in his passive state to allow Zach to care for him, pain or no.

 

Zach pulls the tub from the fire with hotpads, settling it on the hearth and sliding his hand in to test the temperature. It’s warm, warm enough to heat but not hot enough to burn. Chris is still watching him with those motionless eyes, so he reaches out his hand and takes Chris by the arm, pulling him to stand on his poor battered feet.He sways, a reed in a windstorm, and Zach steadies him carefully.

 

The blankets from the couch come off easily, but the filthy blanket he arrived in is more difficult- his fingers are curled into it tightly, and he seems unable or unwilling to relax them. Zach pulls his fingers apart gently, freeing the blanket and making a mental note to burn it tomorrow, along with the now exposed ill-fitting overcoat. God himself knows what kind of vermin are living in them.

 

Chris is still shivering, still staring, as Zach slides the coat from his shoulders, biting his lip again at the now-visible bloodied rip in his shirt. A bayonet, if he doesn’t miss his guess, and Chris is going to be goddamned lucky if it’s not infected to all hell. He unbuttons the shirt slowly, pulling it off over Chris’ hands with delicate precision. They don’t appear as frostbitten as his feet, but they are red with cold and chilblains, and Zach is fastidiously gentle in the task of easing the fabric over and down.

 

He looks up, but Chris doesn’t move an inch, so he unhooks the trousers and slides them down his legs to the floor, lifting Chris’ feet at the ankles so that he can step out one foot at a time.

 

He looks up again, but Chris still makes no move.

 

He glances away, then back, biting his lip and gripping the bottom of his undershirt, pulling it up and over Chris’ head, dropping it to the floor before pulling the army-issue undergarments down and away.

 

He means to guide Chris straight to the tub, but when he turns back, he freezes. Chris is an appalling sight, and Zach catches his breath hard at the lines of ribs that protrude through his skin, the Morse code of flea bites and cold rash. The wound on his shoulder is not infected, but shows signs of being repeatedly burst, trickling a thin line of red down the translucent inside of Chris’ right arm.

 

“God, Chris…”

 

He raises his hand, traces unthinking the delicate curve of an exposed collar bone to the too-pronounced knob of shoulder. Chris’ eyes are huge in his staring face, and he shudders violently, shaking from head to toe.

 

Zach comes to himself in shock and shame, immediately taking Chris’ elbow and helping slowly into the tub.

 

Chris lowers himself cautiously, the steam pinking the fragile skin of his sunken abdomen, the firelight casting shadow shapes across the expanse of skin as he disappears limb by limb under the water.

 

The tub is small, and Chris settles with his back against the curve and his knees under his chin. The kettle hisses, and Zach takes it off the heat, bringing it over to the tub and pouring half into the water, steam rising in great clouds from the water to coat Chris’ lashes and eyebrows with a faint sheen.

 

The hat. Chris is still wearing his hat. Zach begins to chuckle, softly, then louder. He reaches one shaking hand out to pull it off, and Chris’ hair tries to go with it, sticking madly in every direction in protest at the hat’s loss. Zach laughs harder, leaning forward to smooth his hair with his hand, sliding his fingers into the golden mess.

 

Chris raises a hand from the bath to Zach’s face, and he watches in amazement as Chris strokes a wondering thumb once, twice across his cheekbone and down to his mouth, before pulling it back to examine the moisture on its tip.

 

He hadn’t known he was crying.

 

He watches Chris mindlessly until the water grows cool, still disbelieving that this man he has spent so much time and energy and pain on has somehow defied the fates and come back to him. It hurts, burns, the tears in his throat and the thudding of his heart as he watches the fingers of flame-light dance across the crisp slide of a cheekbone, the decadent depression at the base of his throat.

 

Chris has long since fallen asleep, his head lolling on his skinny neck as he sleeps the sleep of the newly-secure. Zach takes the kettle, shutting the door silently behind him as he goes. He makes it out the back door before he caves, falling to his knees and retching into the snow helplessly, the remnants of the soup he had for dinner leaving tracks of color against the unbroken white. There’s a buzzing in his ears, but he covers the mess with more snow and fills the kettle again before returning inside. He pauses at the sink to rinse his mouth with alcohol and water, rubbing his handkerchief across their fronts until he can no longer taste round two of his dinner. There’s soap by the sink; lye, which will sting, but will kill the lice Chris no doubt has, and a towel. He grabs both, detouring briefly into the makeshift closet to grab a set of clean clothes before he slides back into the room.

 

Chris is still asleep, snoring lightly, so he hangs the kettle back over the fire, dropping the towel and soap and clothes, and goes to wake Marc.

 

The look on his face must be enough, because once Marc manages to get his eyes to focus, he doesn’t ask any questions, just shrugs on his coat and goes to take over the last few hours of night watch, for which Zach will be eternally grateful.

 

He returns in time to catch the kettle just before it whistles, moving it off the heat and beginning to pour some of the contents into the tub. The influx of heat wakes Chris, and he looks around wildly until his eyes land on Zach, at which point he sighs deeply and smiles. It breaks Zach’s heart more than a little, but he just smiles in return, taking the bar of soap and beginning to lather Chris’ mat of hair.

 

It takes an hour of scrubbing, of rubbing lather into hair and catching the lice as they run, of stroking a cloth carefully around the inflamed shoulder wound, between painfully blistered toes. He’s as careful as he can be, but he knows some of it hurts, and he clenches his fist in the cloth when Chris gasps.

 

It’s a benediction, of sorts, a blessing of care and warmth on every piece of skin. Every line of bone, every curve of joint is a revelation under his hands, his wrinkled fingers stroking soap into every indentation and protuberance of Chris’ body as he works the layers of dirt and pain away.

 

Near the end, when the water is cooling and thick with grime, he sees Père Louis’ razor lying on his desk near a comb and mirror. He brings it back, a questioning look in his eyes as he kneels by the tub and takes Chris’ chin in his hand. An infinitesimal nod, and he scrapes the razor across a cheek, shedding reddish-brown fur to reveal bone-white skin, removing years in the process. He flashes back suddenly to when he first met Chris, a beautiful laughing man with a bullet wound, smiling in the sunlight.

 

That sunkissed soldier bears almost no resemblance to the exhausted pile of man in front of him, and Zach’s heart hurts at what a change the short time has wrought. He turns Chris’ head, dragging the razor across his chin, following the blade with a thumb to make sure the skin is smooth. He finishes around Chris’ mouth, the final swipe of the blade laying bare the corner of his upper lip, which catches on Zach’s fingertip as he brings Chris’ chin back down. He freezes for a second, but Chris says no word, so he rinses the blade and dries it before returning it to its place on the desk.

 

He helps Chris out of the bath, drying him carefully with the rough cotton towels, pulling the clean loose pants up his legs and tying the drawstring at his waist. He guides him to lay by the fire, where Chris closes his eyes immediately, leaving Zach to gaze at him undisturbed while he sees to Chris’ wounds.

 

Toes are bandaged one by one, wrapping them in ointment and cloth, then the smallest finger on his right hand. Zach rubs lanolin laced with camphor into his hands and arms, massaging the muscles to encourage the return of circulation. The wound on his shoulder is better than he first thought; it’s shallow, but jagged, and has clearly been aggravated, but it could be much worse. It should be fine, as long as it stays clean, so Zach bandages it carefully, and straps Chris’ arm to his side.

 

It’s nearly dawn by the time that Zach has emptied the tub and thrown Chris’ clothes on the trash heap, and he feels as though he’s been up for days. He’s found an extra blanket, and he kneels down to settle it around Chris’ sleeping form, tucking it carefully around his feet. The blankets from the couch are next; the last thing Chris needs is to lose body heat once again, and the fire is starting to burn down.

 

He is staring at Chris’ face, trying desperately to convince himself to crawl off to bed, to leave his friend to a peaceful rest, when Chris opens his eyes and without a word, opens his arms.

 

Zach catches his breath, not wanting to hope, but Chris just waits, and so Zach crawls in, sliding under the pile of blankets and molding himself to Chris’ body, turning him so that his head rests on Zach’s shoulder, wrapping his arms as tightly as he dares around Chris’ shoulders. He can feel the vibrations as Chris starts to chuckle, and smiles when he presses his face deep into the curve of Zach’s neck. His arms tighten involuntarily, and Chris brings his good hand up to cup the side of Zach’s face, stroking a thumb down his eyebrow before he presses his mouth to Zach’s, his lips warm and rough in the dark.

 

Zach inhales sharply, his head spinning as though he’s drunk, but then his resistance is blown away and he’s kissing Chris back, mouth moving in a silent entreaty, a wondering praise against the other man’s lips and teeth and tongue as they press themselves as closely together as the laws of physics will allow.

 

It’s not long before Chris’ motions grow slow and limp, and Zach pulls away gently with a final press of lips to the corner of his mouth and pulls Chris’ head back down. He holds him tightly in the ebbing warmth of the room, listening to the deep even breathing of this miracle beside him, and lets himself breathe for the first time in months.

 

 

 _10 jan 1918_

 _i still can’t believe it. i look at him every day, and i can’t believe it._

 _he has been returned to me._

 _we’ve got him a cot in the sacristy with the rest of us.père louis hasn’t said a word about sending him back, or anywhere else. think everyone’s pretty taken with him and his unexpected return. on Epiphany, no less. père louis just laughed and laughed._

 _he’s healing well. still too skinny, but that’s a slow thing to change. his eyes are as blue as i remembered, but they’re sadder now. haven’t asked._

 _beauty is in the moment, and these moments are beautiful indeed._

 _15 jan 1918_

 _been busy. cases of what seem like flu have come through again. keeps us all running. seems worse than before; maybe just the winter? coldest winter in a hundred years, or so the old grandmeres say._

 _he helps out on the ward; wants to learn to be a medic, like me, like us. seems reasonable. i’m training him, the others help._

He’s tense, Chris thinks.

 

It’s been a gradual change; the first few days after Chris’ return passed in a haze, surrounded by joyful staff, the smells of food, and the tending to his wounds. Zach was there, always there, with him, seeing to his every need.

 

Chris only had to look up, and he was there, his dark eyes watching Chris’ every move.

 

But then… after the first day, Chris noticed that Zach was careful not to hold his hand. Then, in a week, Zach would no longer help him with his clothing.

  


Now…

 

Now he is friendly, always friendly, but he does not touch, does not linger. They have not been alone in days.

 

Chris misses it, misses him. He doesn’t know what to make of it, doesn’t know what to think. Did he do something wrong?

 

Then one day he overhears two doctors as they bend over a man two beds down.

  


“Thank God there aren’t any more of those damned queers around. Mooning over each other like limp-wristed girls.”

  


The other doctor murmurs something noncommittal, finishing the brace he’s wrapping onto the man’s arm.

 

“No loss when they died. Couldn’t believe the wailing that went on here. Upright Christian boys dying left and right, and people here were carrying on over a couple of…” Chris just catches the lewd hand gesture he makes beside the bed.

 

The other doctor straightens, packing his kit, and moves off down the row. The louder man follows, gesticulating energetically in his fit of indignation.

 

Chris feels sick, a roiling in his gut, and he swings his legs over the edge of the bed to walk away. A hand passes him his cane, and he looks up into Zach’s worried gaze. Something shows on his face, because Zach looks around to see what’s troubling him.

 

Zach’s eyes land on the pair of doctors, and a swift series of expressions fly across his face; embarrassment, anger, distrust, and shame show freely before he shutters his gaze and moves his hand away from Chris’.

 

Chris’ stomach turns again, and he takes the cane gingerly, feeling the cold air where Zach’s hand should be.

 

He thinks, now, that he’s beginning to understand.

 _   
_

_   
_

_23 jan, 1918_

 _there have been no more… incidents… since C returned. i did not mean to offend him, but… when i woke the next day and knew what i had done, when he was in such a weakened state, no less, i… despaired._

 _can it truly be thus? that a moment of such temporal joy and pleasure can be a damnable sin? is this why we were created? to be tempted and tried by a vindictive God?_

 _am i to be denied the only love i desire in the name of faith?_

 _he knows. i fear it is true._

 _he touches me still, like he always did, but no more. i bless him and curse him for this- i want so much, so much more. i want him, and cannot act. i will not condemn us both._

 


	6. Février

  
_ February 1918 _

  


 

 _3 rd feb, 1918_

 _snow. more snow. and yet again, more snow._

 _cold has set in for good; we break the ice on the water bucket every morning for fleur. they say it’s the coldest winter in a generation. i’d believe it._

 _mathilde has abandoned my legs for C’s, the ungrateful wretch, so i shiver alone each night._

 _treated a civilian yesterday; unusual. some kids were skating on l’Aisne, which was fun, but one of the boys was showing off for a pretty girl on the bank, and fell. not so fun. got off with just a fractured arm, though; not so bad. think it was mostly his dignity that was sprained._

 _hope la petite fille was worth it!_

 _7 th feb, 1918_

 _soup today is especially pathetic. guess we’re really hitting the bottom of the barrel. trying not to worry about it too much; nothing i can do either way._

 _last i checked, the things i planted last fall have not been dug up, by critters four-legged or two._

 _latest news is of boats being sunk in the sea by the krauts, universal menace of land, air, and now, apparently, water. who knew?_

 

 

Zach sets his pen down as he hears the tell-tale tramp of boots up the stairs to the sacristy door.The gait is slightly uneven, the sound of one step heavier than the other.

 

Chris. Zach can feel the smile before it’s even fully started.

 

Chris’ toes are healing, but he has acquired a lightly rolling stride as his body attempts to balance with digits it can’t fully sense.

 

“Like a sailor,” Zach had said.

 

“No.” Chris grinned. “Like a pirate!”

 

The door bangs open, the sound echoing in the small room as a blast of icy air blows in, ruffling the edges of his page.

 

Zach shivers but straightens with anticipation; the sight of Chris with his cold-pinked cheeks and rumpled hair is infectious in its glee. Chris is whistling under his breath as he slams the door, striding with his hitched amble across the floor to grab at Zach where he sits cross-legged on his cot.

 

Somehow Zach hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t remembered this from before; how Chris craves touch, how he slaps, pushes, grabs, leans against everything and everyone as he moves through the world. Small wonder Mathilde adores him.

 

He gives in gracefully; Chris’ grip on his hands is cold, but firm, as he hauls Zach to his feet, his blue eyes dancing in the evening sun.

 

Zach’s legs have fallen asleep, and he stumbles as the blood prickles through his muscles, falling forward against Chris, who catches him tight against his chest; time tilts for just a second as Zach registers the flood of sensation in his limbs, and then Chris is laughing against him, his thin chest rising and falling between them as he chuckles.

 

Zach blinks, and Chris shifts his grip abruptly, wrapping an arm around Zach’s waist until his palm rests in the indentation of Zach’s spine, capturing Zach’s hand in his. He’s warm, and Zach resists the urge to worm his way closer to the unexpected heat.

 

“Heard a new tune down in town today.” Chris is still smiling.“Didn’t catch the whole name; something about a guy named Casey and a blonde girlie. Want to hear?”

 

Zach nods mutely, still preoccupied with his tingling toes, and then suddenly he is spinning, Chris’ voice in his ear as he waltzes them delightedly and haphazardly around the room, dust motes dancing in their wake.

 

“Buhm ba-da Bum ba-da Bum ba-da Dum, ba-da Dum…Dum… Dum…”

 

Zach clutches instinctively at Chris’ hand, his feet moving automatically in startled response, his fingers grasping Chris’ shirt front for balance as the small room spins past. He doesn’t have time to think, only to react, to move. He can hear the thud of their feet on the wooden floor in the familiar pattern. One two three, One two three.

 

A stole from the rack in the middle of the room catches around their upheld hands, pulling free and rattling the whole contraption, trailing along behind them like some sort of mad flag, an irreverent maypole ribbon, and Chris begins to waltz them faster, laughing as he sings louder and louder.

 

“BUM da-da BUM da-da BUHM da-da DA…”

 

Zach can’t help it; he starts to laugh too, throwing his head back and trusting to Chris to guide them as they spin faster and faster, Chris still managing somehow to hold a tune in between guffaws until they trip over the foot of the vestment rack and fall into a helpless tangle on the floor, laughing and laughing and laughing. Zach isn’t even sure what was quite so funny, but he can’t remember the last time he laughed like this, and he can’t seem to stop.

 

His legs are tangled with Chris’, and his elbow hurts where he banged it, a dull throb that has no effect on his fit of the giggles. He can feel tears in his eyes, and gasps for breath. Chris has thrown an arm over his face and is snickering quietly, his fist pounding lightly at the floor.

 

Zach takes a shuddering breath and closes his eyes, focusing on slowing his racing pulse, grounding himself into the floor. He hears Chris sit up, feels the brush of a thumb against the corner of his eye. It wipes a drop of moisture, and pauses as Zach holds his breath.

 

“Hey. You okay?”

 

Zach breathes out.

 

“I didn’t really mean to drop us like that…” There’s still a hint of suppressed laughter in Chris’ voice, and Zach feels a smile play around the corners of his mouth. He opens his eyes, startled to find Chris’ face so close, the corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement.

 

“Yeah.” Zach breathes in again, smiles back. “Yeah,” he thinks for a breath, pushing away the worry, the tension, the gut-deep burn of Chris’ body next to his. “…I’m fine.”

 

 

 _15 th feb, 1918_

 _up late again.françois had to go home last week on account of a death in the family. sad.means we’re short handed, now, too. still._

 _my condolences, françois._

 _C has come and gone for the evening. he rises before dawn with the rest of us, but has recently acquired employment as a grave digger dans la ville. it is back-breaking work, and he goes to bed early._

 _i have cautioned him repeatedly to on no account touch the bodies himself- many of these dead are from the flu._

 _he laughs._

 _21 st feb, 1918_

 _cold, cold, cold._

 _may I survive this, and move to a tropical island._

 _amen._

 _C could come too._

 _23 rd feb, 1918_

 _he came in tonight at dusk, like usual, dirt from the cemetery stuck to his boots, and stood in front of me, ash-grey with mud and smiling._

 _i am on call for the ward this night, so he washed and returned to sit in front of me, shoving his back against my knees until i gave in and began to rub his shoulders._

 _that man is more insistent than his damn cat, i swear to heaven._

 _i rubbed until his head was heavy on my knee, thumb pressing, fingers pushing._

 _he is beautiful, and i am damned_.

 

 

Zach’s knees hit the wood of the prie-dieu with a thump, his elbows pressing into the wooden armrest as harshly as his fists pressed into his forehead, his bones beginning to ache with the cold that seeps up from the flagstones beneath him.

 

 _The snow that had trickled down the back of his collar had been cold, shockingly cold, and he had shivered convulsively as he slowly turned to face the snowball’s maker._

 _Chris’ blue eyes had danced in his cold-reddened face, his mouth open in jubilant laughter, but something must have shown in Zach’s face, because his eyes widened suddenly, and he shut his mouth with a snap. “Shit!”_

 _He began to laugh again as he ran, lurching lightly as he sprinted across the church yard, ungainly but incredibly fast._

 _Zach felt the puff of snow explode beneath him as he pushed off in pursuit._

 

The soft click of the confessional door signals the arrival of PèreLouis, but Zach pushes his head further into the hardness of his knuckles, squeezing his eyes shut. He listens as PèreLouis settles himself, shifting on the bench cushion and creaking a knee before he slides open the lattice cover between them.

 

Zach rubs his nose into his sleeve, drawing in a deep breath. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been…” He thinks. “God, I don’t know. A long time since my last confession.”

 

He can hear PèreLouis chuckle and shift on the bench.

 

“What are your sins, mon fils?” His tone is indulgent, patient, and Zach winces. He blinks once, the faint light illuminating his white fingers in front of him, then closes his eyes again.

 

“In nomine Patri, et Fili, et Spiritu Sancti…” Zach clutches spastically, forces his throat to open.

 

 _It had taken longer than he had thought, but Zach had caught him, catching him as he rounded a corner and slid, flinging himself forward to tackle Chris into a snowbank, rolling them over and over as Chris laughed helplessly, ending up pinning Chris to the ground as he scooped a handful of snow and dropped it directly into that wide-open, laughing mouth._

 _Chris had spluttered and squirmed, but his eyes, his dawn-colored eyes gave everything away, and Zach knew, knew, in that moment, that he was done for._

 

“Father…” He swallows, breathes. “… I love him.” He shudders. “God knows I have tried not to, God _knows_ I have fought it with everything I have, and yet…” The words are pouring out of him, current through a wire, leaves on a flood. “…and yet I have not, I have not fought it enough, or even… even sometimes at all.” He can hear the hitch in his voice, feel the dampness slide down his cheek, and scrubs furiously at his face. “I am drawn to him, Father, like a moth to a flame, a spark to a match, a compass needle to north, like every other _goddamn_ , sorry Father, cliché that has ever been written. And I know, _I know_ , that it’s wrong, and I’ve tried hard, Father, so _goddamn_ , sorry, _hard_ , and I just… I just…”

 

“Breathe, mon fils.” The voice is gentle, but firm, and Zach bows his head and inhales.

 

“Father, I…”

 

“Se taire, petit.”

 

Zach rubs his fists into his eyes, waiting for the inevitable disgust, the coming condemnation.

  


“Mon fils, what shall I tell you of love?” PèreLouis sighs and resettles himself. “Yes, the church condemns what you say. The Holy Father, yes, he would condemn it.” Zach can see the flicker of light that indicates the father’s dismissive hand gesture. “But…” he pauses, and Zach raises his head.

 

“But this is war.” His voice is tired, resigned. “God created men to love one another, to be drawn together for strength and companionship in times of need.” He shrugs. “So it is. Jacob had Esau. David had Jonathan. Jesus had his beloved disciple. Mon fils, what you feel is simply a misunderstanding. It is the gift of love, a gift which is from God. It is just…” He sounds tired again, and Zach hangs his head. “It is just that you feel it too strongly.”

 

Zach blinks furiously, deeply grateful for the confessional screen.

 

“He is a good man, Chris. As you are. Zach, ecoutez-moi, God loves you. Never doubt this. God made you, and he loves you, no matter how great your sin. What you feel for Chris… it will pass. In time, when this war is over, we will all heal from these atrocities. But, mon fils, if you have acted rashly, if you allow yourself to be too swept up, then, then you will regret it.” Père Louis sighs again, tapping his fingers on the screen. "I give you no penance, mon fils. You have not yet sinned. To love, even to love too much, is no sin."

Zach can feel his eyes itching, but forces his gaze to follow the gesture as the priest passes his hand in blessing.

 

“May the Lord bless you and keep you, in nomine Parti, et Fili, et Spiritu Sancti, Amen.”

 

Zach crosses himself instinctively, his hand slowing as the clatter of the confessional door echoes in the high-ceilinged corner, his mind as clear and blank as the snowdrifts below the window, and his heart twisting within.

 

1) _la petite fille-_ the young lady

2) _dans la ville-_ in the town

3) mon fils- my son

4) In nomine Patri, et Fili, et Spiritu Sancti- in the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit.

5) Se taire, petit- be quiet, little one.

 


	7. Mars

_ March 1918 _

  


 

 

 _5 th mar, 1918_

 _news that reaches us is not so good. more ships being sunk, planes being shot down. nothing too near to us, not yet._

 _there is an uneasy feeling in the air. things are changing, pieces are moving, bits of universal clockwork are sliding into place, but none of the effects can yet be known._

 _we are sitting ducks._

 _russia_ _has had her revolution, and all of eastern europe holds its breath. the germans are coming, and the only question is when._

 _11 th mar, 1918_

 _père louis gave a talk this morning, going over evacuation procedures. the news came in a few days back; russia has signed with deutschland und austria, and has removed herself from the war._

 _what does this mean for us? nothing good, of that we are all certain._

 _the sisters have packed what little food we have left so that it might be carried if we must evacuate quickly. the doctors have packed their cases, père louis his communion set. I keep my letters in my pocket now, my necessities in a bag by the door._

 _the most important thing i would take sits across the room and watches me, his face clear and brave._

 _i don’t think about it. this thing i have said to père louis . i let it sit. it is its own thing, larger than i had ever realized._

 _i think of clichés. mushrooms in the dark, vast hidden reefs in shallow waters. things never seen until too late._

 _there are no words for this feeling._

 _15 th mar, 1918_

 _finland_ _has joined with germany. not that finland makes so great a difference, but one never finds it reassuring to hear that someone else has joined with their enemy._

 _there are rumors of canons, canons so large that they can fire a projectile for a hundred miles. i have no faith in the miracles of chemical ignition, but i will not lie and say that i am unaware of the proximity of the nearest german line._

 _messengers think it will begin any day now. we keep all the patients ready to run._

 _wait. wait. wait._

 

 

 _19 th mar, 1918_

 _père louis regards me with questioning eyes. did you? have you? will you?_

 _no. i have not._

 _what would i say? even if i dared the wrath of God and the church, what would i even say?_

 _by the way, i love you? i’m in love with you? i’m so in love with you i can barely breathe for wanting to touch, to smell, to hold, to…_

 _no._

 _no._

 _no. i will not._

 

 

The shelling begins at just before dawn, the steady percussion rumbling across the river valleys. Chris is up and out of his bed before he’s fully conscious, shoving a stockinged foot into a boot and pulling his jacket over his shoulders. Zach is already gone; he was to take over ward duties at matins, and must be in the church proper.

 

 _Well_ , Chris thinks, _this is it_.

 

He tugs on the other boot, shoving his blanket into the pack that waits at the foot of his bed and clucking to Mathilde. He’s been training her for this, in spite of the general amusement, and this morning it pays off- she settles into the top of the pack and curls up, hanging on as he pulls the drawstring loosely closed and heaves the straps over his shoulders.

 

He nearly collides with Marc as they head for the door, and Chris pulls the door open, waving the other man through before taking a lingering look around the room. He may never see it again, he knows, and he touches the lintel one last time before hurrying down the steps toward the chapel.

 

Zach is in his element, and Chris pauses just a moment in the dim recesses of the massive stone columns to admire him as he works; he’s quick, but deliberate, never missing a beat in the choreographed chaos of a medical evacuation. A strand of hair falls across his forehead, accenting the translucent lines of his brow, his nose, his cheek. He is talking quickly to Pere Louis, his face glowing in the pre-dawn light while his hands wrap a patient’s arm in a sling, coaxing him to sit and swing his legs off the bed and grasp a cane with his good arm.

 

Chris loves him like this, when he’s able to release the inner tension that keeps him wound so tight and lose himself instead in the work at hand, in tending to others with the skill and compassion that come so readily. He bites his lip at the catch in his throat, and steps forward, flinging himself into the commotion without a backward look.

 

Chris is helping a one-legged Tommy into the sacristy wheelbarrow, the last of the evacuees, and trying to be mindful of the man’s newly sutured stump, when he catches a glimpse of Marc pulling Zach aside, a look of intent on his face. Chris maneuvers the cart over to the side of the church, surreptitiously leaning in to catch the muttered conversation. The Tommy looks around, confused, until he catches a glimpse of Zach, and then he grimaces mildly. Chris spares a moment to be vaguely annoyed that apparently _everyone_ has an opinion on their friendship before cocking an unobtrusive ear to the conversation.

 

“Zach, you heard what the runner said.”

 

“What, that the soldiers are less than three miles away? It can’t be true.”

 

A shell explodes in the distance, and Chris tries desperately not to think about all the little outlying farm houses.

 

“C’est possible, Zach, you know this. Here, listen to me.” Marc grabs Zach by the arm, looking him hard in the face. “Chris, if he gets caught again, it’s all over for him. You know that.” Zach’s face whitens visibly, but his face is calm. “These patients…” Marc gestures broadly, “we are doing what we can for them. C’est le mieux to get them to the river, put them on the hospital boat. The Germans, they will not bomb this. But you…” He pauses, leaning in. “You need to run. The soldiers are coming, and it will not be long. The boat will be too full for civilians, and if it is searched, you will both be suspect. Take Christopher, and run. Run until you are far, far away, and do not stop.” Marc pulls away, and Chris can see the stunned look on Zach’s face.

 

“But…”

 

“Non, Zach, this is how it must be. Take him, now, and go.” He slaps Zach firmly between the shoulderblades and gives him a shove toward Chris. “ Allez! Allez! Now, Zach, go!”

 

Chris puts his hands to the handles of the wheelbarrow, leaning into the weight, only to have his arm pulled away. He turns to Zach, his face open and questioning. “But…”

 

Zach looks helpless, confused, and urgent.

 

“I know. I know. But Marc says, go, and he says now.”

 

He meets Chris’ eyes for a moment, his face pleading, and suddenly Marc’s hands are replacing his on the barrow handles, elbowing him aside roughly and beginning to push the cart away. Marc casts one last look over his shoulder, his lips forming the word “go,” and that’s all the catalyst Chris needs to pull them into running, chasing down the cobbled streets like chaff on a wave as the air ignites over their heads.

 

Chris hauls him into a doorway as a chunk of masonry plummets to earth in front of them, the plaster brains of a falling angel ricocheting off the hard stone streets. He knows it’s fake, knows it was never more than fragments of clay and glue, but feels his stomach turn over at the sight in defiance of intellectual abstraction.

 

The bombing is still a distance away, but the reverberations are rattling the buildings of the old town, raining shingles and stones and bits of molding down into the streets. Chris reaches back a hand to stroke Mathilde, winding the fingers of one hand into her fur as he winds the fingers of the other into Zach’s.

 

Zach startles, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but Chris ignores him, and he doesn’t pull away.

 

 

It takes only minutes for them to get out of the town itself, dodging debris and skirting abandoned buildings. Soissons is not large; most of the townsfolk have already left, while the rest have holed up in basements and root cellars, hiding and praying in the face of German wrath. Chris spares a moment to fling a mental Ave Maria in the general direction of the hospital boat, then tugs Zach along with him past the last row of stone buildings and into the wide expanse of field that surrounds the town on all the sides that are not the river. He can see puffs on the horizon, the airborne detritus of the bombing impact craters, and hear the whine of planes overhead, and suddenly it’s overwhelming, and he’s back where he was three months ago, fleeing frantically across the open plane, an unmistakable prize to any who chose to look.

 

He feels the impress of the packed dirt of the path on his elbows before he realizes he’s fallen; it’s not until he hears Mathilde yowl in protest that he figures out that he has hauled himself off the path into the bordering wheatfield.

 

“Chirs! _Chris!_ ”Zach’s voice is frantic, and Chris takes a moment to appreciate the humor of realizing he’s never before heard Zach panic as he forces himself to continue breathing.

 

A warm hand grips his upper arm, and he feels the solid heat of Zach’s body come to rest around him, curling around him in protective sheilding. Zach is sitting behind him, legs and arms wrapped around him as he shivers, and Chris giggles haltingly at Mathilde as she begins to purr, pleased with being sandwiched between her two favorite people.

 

“Breathe, Chris. Slowly. In and out.”

 

“It’s just… it’s … it’s…” he gasps quietly, trying with increasing desperation to calm his breathing. “It’s so big. And open. And they can see us, Zach, they can _< i>see</i>_ us…”

 

A hand presses against his sternum, and he feels something release and draws in a deep shuddering breath.

 

“I just… I don’t know if I can… what if…” He lets the thought trail off. It’s an unendable sentence simply because there are too many potential endings. What if theGermans catch them? What if a bomb hits them? What if a local mistkes them for kraut troops and shoots? What if one of them breaks a leg? What if? What if? What…?

 

Zach’s thumbs push firmly into the muscles of his neck, making him groan. “Again. In and out.”

 

Chris complies, focusing on the chill of the oxygen entering his lungs, the moist push of exhalation, then repeat. It’s a minute, maybe five, he’s not sure, and then he feels Zach’s arms begin to fall away and shivers.

 

“Chris…”

 

“I know. We have to move.”

 

The tension in the body behind him is evident, but there’s no way around it, and they both know it’s true.

 

“Yes. We have to move.”

 

Zach uncurls himself, standing stiffly and taking a wary glance up and down the road. He reaches a hand down, grasping Chris firmly by the forearm and pulling him carefully upright. His dark eyes search Chris’ face for the space of a heartbeat before he laces their fingers together and looks away.

 

“Come on. Let’s go.”

 

 

It’s nearly dark when Chris finally judges them to be out of immediate danger, and they slow from the haphazard jog they have maintained on and off for hours to a firm walk, continuing on for another hour before stepping off the road and heading for a darkened barn a few hundred yards away.

 

They’ve been heading south and west in alternate turns, passing other fleeing refugees on the road, all heading south. The sun and the movement had kept them warm enough all day, but now that night is settling in the temperature is dropping rapidly, and hypothermia is quickly becoming a more real threat than the advancing troops.

 

“In here.”

 

Chris gestures, waving Zach through the barn door into pitch darkness. Chris stands for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust past the point where all he can see are spinning colors until he can vaguely make out the shape of a ladder leading to an exceptionally convenient hayloft. He heads for it, pulling his exhausted body up rung by rung and crawling across hay-strewn planks to curl into the angle of the roof. He loosens his pack and Mathilde hops down excitedly, mouth open as she sniffs the air. He would worry about her running off, but there’s nothing he can do if she does, and besides, he trusts her. Better to let her go, and hunt, and come back, than to attempt to keep her here.

 

Zach hauls a blanket out of his pack, wrapping it around himself as he wiggles further into the piles of hay under the eaves, working the pile around him so that he is impossible to see to anyone at the top of the ladder. Chris crawls over, removing his pack and shuffling straw, working to conceal them as best he can.

 

Zach’s asleep by the time Chris curls around him, pulling Zach against his chest and wrapping him in his arms.

 

 

1) C’est le mieux- it’s the best thing


	8. Avril

  
_ April 1918 _

 

 _  
1 apr 1918_

 _south. west. still running._

 _3 rd apr, 1918_

 _seems safe. think we must have left the troops behind. but hard to know. how far will they push? how long will the lines hold? no news._

 _need to find somewhere to lay low for a while. can’t keep this up much longer._

 _6 th apr, 1918_

 _found a farmhouse today. sitting outside it now. is abandoned._

 _it sits off the road a little way- hard to see unless you know it’s there. good for hiding. snuck up, afraid of disturbing the occupants._

 _they were not likely to be disturbed._

 _C took it hard- guess he’s only seen death when he was too fucked over to process it, so seeing it in such a bucolic setting was hard. looks like it was the flu, i think. possibly food poisoning of some sort, but that’s less likely. young woman, husband. their child. sad, but not unheard of._

 _he feels so deeply, holds everything so close. it humbles me. i can’t…_

 _it’s been too long and i have seen too much. my heart is cracked; frozen and inadequate._

 _we’ll bury them after lunch._

 

 

“Zach?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“How do you get used to it?”

 

His eyes are half masted and distant, and Zach knows he’s only just put together what exactly it is that Zach’s been doing for the past three years.

 

Zach shifts his weight uncomfortably, leaning forward on the handle of the shovel as he looks at the mound of earth in front of them. “I…”

 

He sits abruptly, suddenly tired beyond belief. He can see the faces of every body he’s ever buried in front of him. Every wrist he’s checked and then laid down with a shake of the head, every tissue-thin eyelid he has coaxed to cover a sightless orb.

 

The mound before them is no different. The bodies it holds are not ones that he nursed, their hands were not held by him, he didn’t catch their dying breaths. But it is still the same. The last pieces of what were people, the already decaying corpses of oh-so-recently animated humans; people who ate and drank and laughed and fought and cried and shat and breathed and loved and fucked and held hands in the dark. It’s all the same, really; you die in the hope of the resurrection, or not. Then you decompose in the name of biology.

 

“You don’t, Chris. You never do.”

 

The eyebrow over that marbled eye arches in skepticism, and Zach buries his face in his hands, smearing dirt uncaringly into the edge of his hairline.

 

“You were a grave digger, Chris. How did you do it?”

 

A faint shake of the head. “They were already in coffins when I got them. Not the same.”

 

Zach waits for him to meet his eyes. He doesn’t, so Zach turns away.

 

“I don’t know. I mean, yes, at the end of the day, Chris, a body is a body. It’s not…” he pulls on his hair, “it’s not a person anymore. I don’t know what I believe, if it’s a soul, or a spirit, or what, but… something is gone. Something essential. And after that…” He can still see them, just like in the dreams he had when Chris was gone, those eyes staring blindly at the sky, opaque to every passing cloud.

 

“After that, it’s just so much flesh. But. It’s still never the same. Each one is different. The weight of them. The limpness. The way their mouth falls open, or their hand drops to the ground. They’re still individuals, and…” He trails off, remembering the way the toddler’s head had lolled as he had picked her up.

 

He’s suddenly furious, rage pulsing through his veins as he stands and turns away from the grave, breaking into a jog as he heads for the creek at the bottom of the hill. There’s too much dirt, too much death, too much under his nails, and he feels as though death has tattooed itself upon his skin, sinking its impassive tendrils into his life and sliding out from his fingers, turning everything he touches to rot and abscess, to ruin and absence.

 

If only he can get clean, maybe he can have a chance.

 

He’s scrubbing at his nails with a twig for the third time, his knuckles red from the cold water, when his hands are captured.

 

“Hey.”

 

Zach looks stubbornly away.

 

“Hey. I’m sorry. I…” Chris sounds sincere, he’ll give him that much, “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I just…I’ve never dealt with that before. You know? I just…”

 

He trails off, and Zach bites his lip, giving a half-hearted tug to his captive fingers. It doesn’t work; Chris wraps them more tightly in his own grip, the warmth of his palms pervading Zach’s chilled joints.

 

“I’m _sorry_ , Zach.” His face is open and clear, and he pulls Zach out of his crouch to wrap him in a tight hug, pressing his whiskery cheek to Zach’s. “ _I’m sorry_.”

 

Zach’s arms come up of their own volition, and then he’s hugging back, feeling Chris’ arms tighten in response, breathing in time, inhaling every particle of Chris, the scents of sweat and sun, cotton and sky.

 

He could never leave this, he knows, and his gut aches with the knowledge.

 

This is dangerous, he knows, he _knows_ , but…

 

But.

 

 

 _13 th apr, 1918_

 _finally got the house clean enough to stay in. thank all the saints. sleeping under the stars is lovely in poetry, but not so lovely in your lower lumbar._

 _lots of lye soap and the liberal application of kerosene, and i believe it to be unlikely to cause any infection._

 _crops were planted not long ago- not too much, but enough, if we’re careful. carrots and leeks and garlic and rye. there’s also a root cellar. nearly empty, but we should make it._

 _it’s both the easiest and most difficult thing i’ve ever done, to be here with him. to be here alone with him._

 _16 th apr, 1918_

 _work work work. i had forgotten. somewhere my grandfather is laughing as the blisters from the hoe crack and ooze._

 _laugh all you like, old man. what i remember is going to feed me well, and i think that worth no small effort._

 _C has been rethatching the roof; the winter rains had rotted a lot of it. i don’t think he really knows what he’s doing, but he seems to be making the best of it._

 _still. i may sleep in the barn come the first spring storm._

 _mathilde is overjoyed at our current location. she leaves us love notes spelled out in rodent intestines every morning on the doorstep. i’ve never seen her so fat._

 

 

It’s hot, still hot, even though it’s nearly dusk. Humid, sticky; Zach wipes his face against his sleeve, smearing the dust and sweat together in a sticky paste.

 

He can see lights in the house where Chris is lighting candles in anticipation of evening, and smiles to himself as he leans on the barn gate. The little house is glowing, an island of light in the gathering dark, and he trudges exhaustedly toward it, leaning his shovel against the stone wall before pushing through the door.

 

The interior of the house is cool; the stone walls and large, shading trees insure that it never reaches the temperature of the fields surrounding, and Zach sighs in relief as the cool air washes over him. He strips off his shirt, peeling the thin cotton from his back and hanging it on a peg by the door before turning.

 

He doesn’t see Chris at first; even with the candles, the room is dim. Chris has laid a small fire, and as his eyes adjust to the darkness, he glances around the room, looking for him.

 

The wooden table is bare- they had eaten earlier, before Zach had gone out again to finish the evening chores. Chris has cleaned it and put the remainder of their food away, but he doesn’t appear to be nearby. Perhaps he went upstairs? Zach frowns and heads for the ladder, pausing suddenly as the sound of a splash reaches his ear.

 

He turns his head to the far wall, ears pricked and eyes scanning for the source of the sound.

 

Under the eastern window sits a huge, claw foot tub.

 

In the tub sits Chris.

 

He can feel his face begin to flame, and is immediately very grateful for the poor light. He coughs awkwardly, a feeble attempt to cover his embarrassment, he knows, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

“Zach.”

 

“Um, yes. Chris. I’ll just go up…”

 

“Zach. Come here.”

 

He nearly chokes. What does Chris think he’s doing?

 

“What? No, I’ll just…”

 

“Zach.” His tone is calm, steady. “Please.”

 

His feet move without authorization, and he looks away as he walks over, bringing himself to kneel at the side of the tub, his face politely averted. He can’t even begin to imagine what he might see, and he wrenches his mind away with a jerk, focusing on the delicate crack that bisects the flagstone by his right knee.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Zach…”

 

Chris sounds resigned, almost disappointed, and he lifts his head without thinking, his eyes locking into Chris’ without hesitation.

 

Chris raises a long-fingered hand from the water, droplets sliding down his forearm as he lays it gently against Zach’s cheek, and it’s all Zach can do to close his eyes, biting his lip to repress his moan.

 

“Zach.” His voice is unspeakably tender, and his fingers are tracing the lines of Zach’s face; the point of his nose, the wing of his eyebrow, the fine edge of his hairline. “Do you think I don’t know?” Chris almost sounds sad, and Zach feels his heart clench in apology. “Do you think that I don’t feel too? That what’s between us is so deniable?”

 

“Chris, I…” He stands suddenly. It’s too much. His heart is pounding and his head spinning, and it’s surely too much for him to resist any longer. He can’t be asked to ignore this, he can’t, and so he stands, his face turned to the door.

 

Before he can take a step, Chris surges out of the water and grabs his arm, fingers sinking into his skin as water sheets from his body.

 

“No. Wait. This…” Chris hauls him closer, Zach’s eyes squeezed shut. He feels a hand settle against his face again. “Zach. Look at me. _Please_ , just…”

 

There’s such a note of pleading to his tone that Zach opens his eyes again to find Chris’ face only inches from his own. He steadfastly refuses to think about the rest of him, fully nude and dripping wet, not a foot from where he stands.

 

“Zach, it’s just me. This is just me.” Chris slides his hand around to the back of Zach’s neck and pulls his head forward until their foreheads touch. Chris’ eyes are steel grey in the half-dark. “This is just you. And just me.”

 

Zach can feel water droplets sliding down between his shoulder blades from Chris’ shriveled fingertips and shudders at the sensation. Chris’ chuckle ghosts across his mouth, and then there is the lightest touch at his belt and he jumps, knocking his head against Chris’. He pulls back again, turning his head.

 

“Chris, I …”

 

“No.” Chris’ hands are firm as he yanks Zach back. His fingers are tentative, but determined as Chris unhooks Zach’s belt to let his pants fall, and Zach shivers as gooseflesh breaks out all over.

 

“Chris…”

 

“No, Zach. We’re done with this.” Chris’ hands come up to Zach’s shoulders, cool from the water against his pebbled flesh. He leans his forehead against Zach’s for a moment, then slides his hands down to Zach’s elbows, pulling carefully. “I can’t do this anymore. You’re all I want, all I can think of, all I _dream_ of.” He slides his hands down to Zach’s wrists. “ _Please_.”

 

The last word is a breath across his lips, and the touch of Chris’ fingers to the inside of his wrist pulls him across the line. He whimpers deep in his throat, and Chris presses forward to push firm lips to his, fingers stroking gleefully down his sides as he lifts a foot into the bath.

 

The water is lukewarm, nearly cool after the heat of the day, and it laps at his thighs as he lowers himself into the tub. His knees find the bottom, and he gasps as he feels the silken slip of Chris’ bare calves on the outside of his thighs, his dick throbbing hard between his legs in the tepid water. He doesn’t notice that he’s closed his eyes again as he settles his bottom on his heels until Chris’ damp fingertip caresses the fragile skin of his closed eyelid, and he blinks them open, drawing in air at the sight before him.

 

The evening light has gilded Chris, spilling across the curve of his cheekbone, the eloquent arc of clavicle, to pool along his forearm as it reaches toward Zach’s face. He smiles, the last drop of daylight pooling in the corner of his mouth, and Zach leans forward with a breathless groan, bracing his hands on either side of Chris’ hips and licks the drop of sun from the illuminated dimple before he can think what he’s done.

 

The sound that breaks from Chris’ mouth settles in Zach’s stomach and begins to warm him, heat flooding in all directions from the base of his spine, and he leans forward again to press his mouth against the other man’s, tipping his head to push lip to lip, heated skin to plush solidity, opening in willing invitation at the touch of Chris’ tongue to his seeking mouth.

 

The water sloshes as they move, but he can’t pause to notice the splash of liquid on the tiled floor because Chris has set his hands on Zach’s hips, and pressed his tongue into Zach’s mouth, and it’s all Zach can do to remember to breathe as he leans in, his body covering Chris and sliding in to fit against him.

 

The sensory input is too much, shifting Zach’s senses until he can barely breathe, aware only of discrete touches, isolated moans. Chris’ fingertip against his bottom lip, the way the mathematically perfect curve of Chris’ ass fits into his hand like it was made for him. The clutch of strong fingers on his biceps as he braces his arms on the cool porcelain rim of the tub, the opened space as Chris’ knees fall open beneath him, welcoming him without reserve.

 

He licks in to Chris’ mouth, tasting and touching, claiming with an insistence on the verge of desperation. Chris laughs breathlessly beneath him, his smile wide and bright, and Zach freezes as he feels the grip of those roughened fingers on his cock, jerking in surprise as he’s pressed against Chris’ own warm, hard, length.

 

“Chris… I… this…”

 

“Shh.” Chris’ free hand rubs gently over his back as his arms shake in an effort to hold himself still. “Shh, Zach, this is…right. I _feel_ it, I _know_ it.” He pulls back enough to look him in the eye, searching frantically for truth and hope in his endless smile. “Zach, this is how it’s supposed to be with us. How it’s _always_ been supposed to be.” Chris runs a reverential hand across his face, and Zach closes his eyes. “This touch, this…connection, _Zach_ … you’re everything to me. This… I can’t even name it, but I know this is what I want. _Please_. Zach. Please?”

 

He tugs, and Zach is lost, falling forward to bury himself into Chris’ neck as he begins the rhythmic slide against Chris’ hand, hiding his face as his mouth falls open, moving faster as the sounds Chris is making move from pleased to lovely to urgent.

 

There is a moment when time freezes and the universe opens before him, stars stretching on either side of Chris’ face, and then his body explodes in ecstasy, and he’s falling to earth in a storm of breath and skin and heat, washing up in freckled arms, lying in a cooling tub as war rages on the horizon.

 

 _24 th apr 1918_

 _what can i say? what can i possibly say?_

 _only this- that i love him beyond all reason._

 


	9. Mai

_ May 1918 _

 

 

“Zach?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“How did you end up in this, anyway?”

 

Zach looks up, his eyebrows puckered in a question, the knife held loosely in his hand.

 

“I mean… you’re not really a doctor. Right?”

 

Zach’s hands begin to move again, the one turning the potato lengthwise, as the other peels off stripes of skin to reveal the pale starchy underbelly. “Right.”

 

“So… I know that you have medical training. But…”

 

Zach quirks a smile. “But how come a somewhat educated and perfectly healthy Pennsylvania farm boy ended up tending wounds in a French hospital instead of fighting bravely with the other boys in the trenches?”

 

Chris can feel his cheeks heat. He was honestly curious, but it sounds as though he’s touched something deeper. “No.” He keeps his voice quiet. “How did a brilliant and capable man end up here, breaking his heart over the dead and dying in a country not his own?”

 

Zach’s expression sobers, and he looks down, methodically working the potato over with his agile fingers. He adds the now-nude vegetable to the pile at his feet, taking another from the bucket on his left and applying the knife in smooth, regular strokes. He pauses before answering, his face closed.

 

“I was already in Paris. I’ve told you this. I came here to study, a year before the war broke out. By the time we all realized how serious it was going to be… it was too late.” He frowns. “Besides- I had basic med training. Might as well be useful.”

 

The pile of feathers on the table is growing as Chris pulls them from the skin of the small grouse he’d shot that morning. The smell of the boiled carcass is just this side of revolting, but it loosens the feathers enough to pluck them relatively easily, so he just tries to remember to turn his head before he breathes.

 

He waits.

 

Zach deposits another denuded potato onto the pile, and sighs. “It was because of Tristan.” He pauses, visibly settling himself. He rolls his shoulders, already lost in memory, and Chris watches fascinated, his fingers rhythmically pulling each feather from its puckered prickle of skin. “Tristan wanted to come to Paris. Had always wanted to come to Paris. And Tristan… was my best friend.”

 

There’s a wistful note in Zach’s voice that Chris has heard before, but it’s been a long time. There’s something, he thinks, when your day to day living is about maintaining, and about surviving, that allows you to forget who you are and where you come from, to subsume yourself fully in the moment. A coping mechanism, likely, but he’s realizing now how little he knows the man across from him.

 

He knows the important things; the roughened husk of his early morning whisper, the perfection of the hollow in his throat where his clavicles bend into place. The exact texture of the webbing between his thumb and inkstained first finger.

 

But the rest? No. Not yet.

 

“I… never was quite right. Not where I grew up. I mean, I was never… ostracized. I had friends, I went to school, I did all right. But… everyone I knew, everyone, my cousins, my brother, my friends… they all wanted what we’re all supposed to want. To grow up, get a job, marry some nice girl, and have a family. Like our parents did, and their parents before them.

 

“I didn’t know what I wanted. But it wasn’t that, I could say that much. I always wanted more; dreamed bigger, louder, different from everyone else. And Tristan… he was like me. Dreamed bigger, wanted more, and he… he could never take no for an answer, not from his parents, not from our school. He wasn’t going to be held back by anyone or anything, he was going to do whatever it was he wanted to do. And what he wanted… was a different life. What he wanted, he was convinced, was Paris.”

 

Zach picks up a new potato, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. He stares steadfastly down, eyes on the knife as it curves through space, parting roughened cover from silky ovoid. “Paris was his idea. His parents went, for their honeymoon. He grew up seeing photographs of it, hearing the stories of the Champs-Elysees, of the gardens, of the catacombs. He was Paris-mad, and I was along for the ride.

 

“We saved, for three summers, and told our parents at the end. We had a plan- he was to study architecture and I was to study medicine. Nice, respectable careers. Something that made moving to Paris slightly less hare-brained. Slightly more… above-board.” Zach quirks a smile at the memory. “My mother was… Not. Pleased.” He huffs a soft chuckle, his eyes distant. “So we came. Rented a room in the 14ieme arrondisment, and enrolled in classes.” He turns his head for the first time, meeting Chris’ eyes. “This would have been… l’automne de 1913. We had… nine months. Nine months before it all went to shit. But…no. Things changed. Before that, things changed.”

 

He picks up another potato. The pile by his side is now more than enough for dinner, but Chris doesn’t feel like pointing it out.

 

“Chris…” Zach’s voice is low, tight. “…I didn’t know I loved him. I didn’t know I was in love with him. Until he met Mirielle.”

 

The knife slips in his grip, grazing past the curve of the potato to land in Zach’s thumb. He hisses, shoving the thumb into his mouth to suck. Chris can see the bloom of a red droplet spreading across the whitened surface of the earth-apple, but he is frozen to his seat.

 

Zach pulls his thumb out of his mouth with a pop, grimacing at the shallow slice across the fingerpad, then grips the offending vegetable more firmly and sets the knife to skin. “The thing was, I loved her too. You couldn’t _not_ love Mirielle; she was wonderful. Young, beautiful, madly in love- I can… I can still see her, vividly. Calling down from her balcony to us, her dark hair caught in the wind. Wiping her hands on her starched apron. Laughing and laughing as she danced with Tristan. She was magnificent.”

 

The moment stretches, suspended in the air around them, and Chris thinks he can almost see her himself, hear her laughing voice.

 

“And then… and then some goddamned idiot went and started this eternally damned war.” His tone is cold, his hands on the hapless potato hard and tight. “Tristan got some fool idea about ‘beauty’ and ‘victory’ and ‘noble things’, and went and joined up. Mirielle and I both tried to reason with him, but he couldn’t hear us over the sound of his own glory.

 

“We didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving, of going home, so I let myself get recruited into working at les hopitals. I had taken a year of classes, I knew a skull from a sacrum. Mirielle… became a nurse. I don’t know where.” He passes a hand over his eyes, fingers gripping the potato hard. “Tristan… he died…he was killed… he died in Ypres. I didn’t hear till months later.”

 

The afternoon light catches the planes of his face, illuminating every moving muscle as Zach presses his expression into forced nonchalance. Grief chases through his eyes, swirling like milk through coffee, and Chris rises, sets aside the feather in his hand, and crosses the room.

 

The knife is still clutched in his hand, so Chris removes it, setting it on the table and pulling the mutilated potato from his grasp before kneeling at his feet and pulling Zach’s hands to his chest.

 

He examines the cut, bringing it to his lips, then folding his thumb across his fingers and wrapping Zach’s fist in his own.

 

Zach is struggling adamantly to smooth the pain from his features, his brow twisting in anguish, his eyes glaring determinedly out the window.

 

Chris lifts a finger, traces it across Zach’s bottom lip.

 

Zach’s eyes close, and he leans forward, wrapping his arms around Chris’ shoulders and burying his face in his collar, fisting his hands in Chris’ shirtfront as he quietly and thoroughly falls apart.

 

 

 _4 th may, 1918_

 _been getting more refugees on the roads. women and children, mostly. a few old men with them. or boys too young to fight. not many of those left, even._

 _what is “too young to fight” when the war is in your own backyard?_

 _they bring news, and take food. turnips, pickled onions, in exchange for the death of the Red Baron and the fall of rostov._

 _i can’t adjust._

 _i go to sleep every night pressed against him, and wake every morning in his arms._

 _is this sin? what if it is? i can resist no more. if God is merciful, he knows this to be true. and if there is a hell, i welcome it. it seems a fair trade._

 _C is reading over my shoulder. he is laughing at me. he has no fear of sin, says that if Almighty God himself is so concerned, he should never have let C return, knowing, in his omniscience, what the outcome would be._

 _i am sure there is an argument against that, but damned if i can make one with his mouth against my neck._

 _O trespass sweetly urged, give me my sin again!_

 _11 th may, 1918_

 _things blooming everywhere. C keeps putting flowers on the family graves. for a heathen, he’s awfully fond of the rituals. maybe if I set him to praying now, I may yet escape too many years in Purgatory._

 _maybe._

 _been planting. planted courgettes and peas and beans a week ago- a little late, but should still be fine. wheat and barley were already in the ground, as were potatoes and turnips and leeks and beets and every other disgusting root vegetable known to man._

 _if i never eat another pickled beet, it will be too soon._

 

 

The sun is warm on Chris’ face, the heat making him sleepy as his stomach begins to digest his lunch, so he lays back in the long grass and closes his eyes.

 

“Hey. _Hey_.” Zach’s voice is laughing, but there’s a toe digging its way into his ribs, so he grunts and bats ineffectually in the direction of Zach’s foot. “No sleeping on the job! We’ve got work to do.”

 

“ ‘m not sleeping…”

 

“uh huh. I can see exactly how much you’re not sleeping.”

 

The toe digs into his side again, deftly wiggling into the indentation between his fourth and fifth ribs where he is the most ticklish. He squirms. “Stooop….”

 

Laughter, then the toe again, insistent and persuasive, prodding him until he rolls over, propping his weight on his elbow and glaring unconvincingly down at Zach’s laughing face.

 

His hand reaches out to stroke against Zach’s cheek, which is growing tan in the repeated exposure to the late spring sun, his eyes warm and dancing in his face. He’s so beautiful like this, so fine-etched and perfect that Chris can’t stand it. It makes him hurt somewhere inside, an ache like pain in his chest, so he leans forward and kisses him deeply, tasting bread and cheese and garlic as Zach laughs into his mouth.

 

He brings a hand up to Zach’s collar, undoing the buttons one by one, hoping Zach won’t notice too quickly as he kisses him with distracting fervor. Zach’s still wary, still hesitant, but all Chris can think of is spreading him out in the grass, allowing the sun to illuminate every crevice, every slope, every shadow of him, laying him bare for Chris’ satisfaction.

 

Zach’s breathing is quickening, and he cuts a sound off short in his throat, sliding his tongue into Chris’ mouth to befriend his own, licking the inside of his cheek and pressing against the back of his teeth.

 

Chris gets a hand in Zach’s shirt before he gets stopped, pushes his palm down flat against the warm muscle, his ring finger brushing past a nipple which makes Zach inhale sharply before grasping Chris’ wrist with his long, strong fingers.

 

“Chris…”

 

His voice is breathless, and Chris groans aloud before he can stop himself, pulling away from Zach’s mouth to look him in the eye.

 

Zach bites his lip, his eyes wide, and Chris holds his gaze, his fingers smoothing across his chest.

 

“Zach. Please?”

 

He didn’t mean to sound quite so desperate, but he doesn’t really understand Zach’s reticence. All he wants is to press himself across, into, against the flesh laid out beneath him, making himself part and parcel of this other being, indelible upon his skin.

Zach stares at him a moment longer, his gaze seeking, evaluating, then his eyes flutter shut and his fingers release, and Chris smiles, knowing it for the implicit permission it is.

 

The shirt is the first thing to go as he wrestles the coarse cotton down over Zach’s shoulders, pushing the sleeves down past pointed elbows to delicate wrists before pulling it out from beneath him and throwing it happily to the side. He can feel Zach’s amused gaze on him, but he doesn’t care- this is an opportunity not to be missed, and he hums happily to himself as he rubs his hands all over Zach’s newly revealed chest and arms. Zach is long, wiry; he’s strong, but lean, his musculature the elegantly defined lines of a dancer or acrobat, and Chris follows every curve with his fingers, pushing into every hidden space of skin, leaning forwardtorub his face onto the warm expanse that covers Zach’s solar plexus.

 

Zach’s laughing outright now, and Chris smiles as he unbuttons Zach’s pants, pushing at his knees until Zach bends, lifting his legs to permit the removal.

 

His pants get hung on his boots, and Zach spends another minute in snickering while Chris impatiently yanks his boots and socks off. He triumphantly tosses the constraining cloth away, turning to take a foot in each hand and survey this new topography before him.

 

There’s something in his face, he thinks, because Zach’s eyes go dark and opaque, and though he’s still chuckling, it’s quieter and laced with a tense anticipation. He’s tightened, withdrawn, and it makes Chris sad, so he shoves his thumbs into the arches of the feet still resting in his hands, and is rewarded by a gentle sigh, Zach’s eyes drifting shut as Chris rubs into the balls of his feet, feeling out the small particles, the larger knots, the drawn up cords of muscle.

 

He works his way methodically upward, detailing each ankle, rotating the foot and rubbing the tendons up to the calf; digging fingers into calf muscle up to the back of the knee, where he has to shove his face into the bend, feeling the brush of hair on his face and biting possessively, just enough to leave a mark.

 

Zach jumps at the touch of teeth, his hands grasping at the stems of grass, and Chris smiles, trailing a hand up his inner thigh before following it with his tongue. Zach gasps and jumps, laughing breathlessly with his eyes still closed as Chris rubs a hand into his belly. He’s fascinated by the workings of Zach’s body; how he can feel the shape of organs through his abdominal wall, how any casual or calculated touch causes a certain specific response. He pushes his palm into the inner curve of Zach’s hip, where ball joint meets socket, and closes his lips around the head of his cock, tongue resting experimentally its head.

Zach gasps, pulling his legs up fast, so Chris curls one hand around his hip and reaches the other up to lace into his fingers before sliding his mouth down the shaft, feeling the sudden clutch of fingers against his own.

 

The sensation is interesting, different than he expected- it’s clearly a living thing in his mouth, warm and moving, so he wraps his tongue around it and licks, sliding his mouth up and down, cataloguing the various verbal and nonverbal responses to the experimental stimulation. _So far, so good_ , he thinks, and smiles as he begins to suck. A moan turns to a gasp, which moves into outright cries as Chris angles his head in a slightly new way, widening his throat to push as far as he can. He can’t tear his eyes away, glued to the flush rising through Zach’s pale chest. He can taste something in his mouth, salty like brine, and then Zach is freezing, his back arched and his mouth open, and Chris’ mouth is full of warm salt while his fingers are nearly disjointed.

 

He swallows without thinking, extricating his hand and pulling himself up to flop down next to Zach, his palm still gripping protectively across Zach’s bare hip, listening as Zach’s breathing slows and evens.

 

It’s when Zach is rebuttoning his shirt that he mumbles something that he doesn’t catch, and he leans in to hear.

 

“What?”

 

“When did you know that…” Zach fumbles a button, frowning, “…that you were… different?”

 

“Different?”

 

“You know…” Zach grimaces, makes some sort of aborted half gesture between their bodies. “Not the same.”

 

It takes him a minute, but he gets it, leaning in to pull a piece of grass out of Zach’s dark hair.

 

“I… didn’t, Zach.”He flicks the yellow stem away. “Not till you.” He looks up in time to register the look of shock on Zach’s face as it pales under his tan. “Why?”

 

“What do you mean, why? And what do you mean, ‘not till me’?” Zach’s buttoning in a hurry now, looking down at his hands and away from Chris.

 

“Well… I mean, I didn’t know until I met you, Zach.” He shrugs. “I’m just an ordinary guy. I didn’t… I don’t…”

 

He looks up at Zach, reaching over to slide their fingers back together.

  


“When I met you, Zach…” he tugs Zach’s hand, and Zach finally meets his eyes. “Before you… I knew some things. I knew girls. I kissed girls. Junie, and Elaine. Ann. But… it never meant anything. And… I was always closest to Junie’s brother, Luke.” He closes his eyes, feeling his cheeks flush. “I kissed him once, too, back behind the barn. He… was surprised. We never said anything about it. But… Zach, I didn’t know. I didn’t know I could feel like this, could feel so _much_ , Zach…

 

“When I met you, Zach. Everything changed.”

 

 

 _23 rd may, 1918_

 _he’s not… i can’t…_

 _he’s everywhere. everywhere i turn, there he is._

 _i don’t even know if I **want** to escape him anymore._

 _27 th may, 1918_

 _let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for my love…_

 _God._

 


	10. Juin

  
_ June 1918 _

  


 

 

 _3 rd june, 1918_

 _more refugees on the roads. word is that the americans are coming en masse, and the krauts are making a last surge in advance of their arrival. a few have recommended that we keep moving, as we are not that far south of paris. we’ll see._

 _been doing some doctoring here and there- mostly children with cuts or colds, the occasional sprained limb. mostly the people are stressed, tired, and malnourished. fuck all I can do for that, besides advise them to rest._

 _still have my stethoscope that marc gave me, back when i first showed up at l’hopital. comes in handy._

 _was a very pregnant lady through yesterday- elisabet. C had to go quickly out back, he was laughing too hard. she’s tiny, truly small, and the way she came waddling up the path… well, i could hardly blame him. she must be as big around as she is tall. not a waist, per se, but rather an equator…_

 _wanted an exam, told her I knew v little about human pregnancy, more about les chats, or bullet wounds; she didn’t care, made me take a look. should come any day. or hour._

 _eating is getting better. fruit coming in on trees, garden starting to put out veg. C is beginning to put on muscle again. was beginning to worry about scurvy, for both of us._

 _8 th june, 1918_

 _elisabet still enormous. i worry about her falling. and then i worry about her rolling…_

 _well. at least it’s flat around here._

 _mostly._

 _word on the roads is germans pressing south, and flu creeping in. not much- just bits, here and there. it’s early yet, but come fall…_

 _hell, even come the first cold snap._

 _life is… unbelievable. is the only word i can come up with. there is the constant terror of potential bombing, even though we are at some remove from the front lines. that could always change. somehow, in the back of my mind, i know we’re never really safe._

 _but._

 _but._

 _i wake every morning with a roof over my head. there is more and more good food every day. all this, and…_

 _i never appreciated simple pleasures until the war- always wanted more; more time, more success, more anything, everything. now?_

 _now all i want is this, and i have no idea how long it will last_.

 

 

 

The knock comes as day is breaking, a solid pounding on the front door that rattles the downstairs glass. Zach wakes instantly, reactions trained from years on a sick ward, and crosses to the window under the eaves. It’s Michelle, Elisabet’s sister; he can make out her blond head in the moonlight, and that can mean only one thing- Elisabet.

 

“I’ll be right down!”

 

Her head turns, and she nods at him, her expression calm, but intent. He pulls back in, shutting the window quietly and striking a match, the sudden sulphuric flare bright in the dark room.

 

He lights the candle on the bedside table and fishes under the side of the bed, coming up with one sock and a handful of lint. He shakes the sock out and pulls it on, lifting his pants from where they hang over the back of the chair and stepping into them, belting them at the waist before fumbling into his shirt. His boots are on the far side of the room, but his other sock…

 

Chris rolls over in bed, mumbling incoherently and tossing an arm across his eyes against the candlelight. His bare chest is cream in the yellow light, flushed with the heat of sleep down the line of his sternum and up his neck. He turns again, pressing his face into Zach’s pillow and smiling, and Zach feels his heart expand as his mouth curves involuntarily. He is unspeakably beautiful like this, Zach thinks, a godlet dropped to earth by the careless fingers of Aphrodite herself, and he spares a moment to stare unbelievingly.

 

He locates his other sock at the foot of the bed, and yanks it on, following quickly with his boots. He blows out the candle and leans in close, pressing his face to Chris’ in the still dark. He rubs his nose into the hair just at Chris’ temple, inhaling deeply and tracing his lips across the verge of skin just above his ear. Chris wakes enough to raise a hand, pulling Zach’s head down and kissing him sleepily, mouth warm and loose, fingers loosing their grip as he slides back into unconsciousness.

 

Zach eases his arm back down, leaning forward one last time to kiss the end of his eyebrow and whisper.

 

“Je t’aime, mon cher. Back soon.”

 

Mathilde gives a jaw-cracking yawn from the foot of the bed, and Zach heads out, slipping down the stairs and out the door as the moon begins to set.

 

By the time he arrives at the encampment, Elisabet’s labor is nearing its end, a fact which both alarms and relieves him. It’s not her first child; that one stands waiting outside the tent, shifting nervously from foot to foot with all the stoic dignity a seven year old can muster up. There’s a three year old, too, somewhere, Zach knows, but he hasn’t seen her since the first day he met them all. In any case, they are not his current concern- their soon-to-be brother or sister is, and so he allows Michelle to usher him in.

 

He washes thoroughly and gives Elisabet a cursory examination, but there’s little for him to do but wait. Michelle is there as well, holding Elisabet’s hand while she grunts, and it’s not long before Zach can see the fuzzily matted top of a head appearing between her spread legs.

 

A few more moments and it’s all over, and Zach is holding in his hands a perfectly formed infant, holding his breath as he counts fingers and toes, swiping a finger through the mouth and turning it over to coax a breath. The child is large and strong, and he howls in sudden outrage at the abrupt sensations of cold and air, expressing his displeasure in no uncertain terms. Zach laughs in relief, handing him to Michelle to wrap in a towel while he ties the thread and cuts the cord.

 

It’s an ideal birth; the placenta is delivered quickly and easily, and Elisabet, though exhausted, is fine. The baby is named Jean-Luc in short order, and he settles into contented existence at his mother’s breast without event, so Zach decides to go be unnecessary outside instead of taking up indoor space.

 

He’s contemplatively smoking a cigarette when Michelle calls him in again, so he rubs out his smoke and stands, rinsing his hands in the nearby wash basin before re-entering the tent.

 

Michelle pushes him over to the bedside where he stands awkwardly, not wanting to disturb, until Elisabet looks up at him with a beatific smile.

 

“Merci, Zach. Merci beaucoup.” Her eyes are wide and lovely with happiness, and he can feel himself blush under her regard.

 

“Ce n’est rien, Madame.”

 

“Non.” She shakes her head, still smiling, and pulls the corner of the blanket back from the sleeping face. “Voici. Il est parfait, n’est ce pas?”

 

His face is scrunched and red, his fingers squeezed into tiny fists, but Zach knows instinctively what she sees, and reaches out to run a finger down the puckered cheek. His fingertip is huge and rough against the delicate skin, worn and scarred with tiny lines, and he watches in wonderment as Jean-Luc’s mobile face responds to his touch.

 

“Oui. Il est parfait.”

 

 

 _13 th juin, 1918_

 _three days. three days he’s been in this world, drawing breath, moving limbs. a matter of hours, and yet so much more than that._

 _and yet, what does his existence change? nothing, on the greater plane. the germans still advance. the seasons still change. night turns to day turns to night turns to day turns to night again._

 _and yet._

 _and yet, here is new life, untouched, unblemished, poised and falling across the brink of innocence into humanity, moving inexorably forward into childhood, adulthood, death._

 _it is truly a miracle, that we were all once so- naked and helpless, with no ability for the smallest things. only to eat, to sleep, to wail in distress. not even to hold our heads._

 _and yet._

 _and yet one day, he will be as we are now, grown and standing upright. talking, laughing, fighting._

 _i held him in my hands, so new, and knew the face of God._

 _17 th june, 1918_

 _news is bad. germans have advanced, and the allies have lost many. when will the advance cease? how many will yet die? will the lines hold?_

 _who can say?_

 _should we run?_

 _perhaps._

 _20 th june, 1918_

 _discussed leaving w C._

 _fought about leaving w C._

 _he is all for staying, for letting the germans come, and… and what? shooting them out of the upper windows? with what guns? fending them off with kitchen knives? for how many minutes?_

 _it is ridiculous._

 _we will be captured, i said to him, we will be either taken prisoner or executed outright, i said, and then who does that help? certainly not me or you, and not the others who may need us either._

 _we should fight, he says, we should go join back up and defend ourselves, take some of them with us if we have to go._

 _but we do not **have** to go, i reply. there are better things for us to do. escort michelle and elisabet and the children, for one, take them to safety. i’m a doctor, not a soldier, i said._

 _i’m a soldier, not a civilian, he shot back._

 _he is not healed. he is not strong enough. he limps, and cannot run. he is not fit, and he would be taken prisoner again. i said this to him, watching the heat rise in his cheeks._

 _and what of it, he asked, how many other unfit men and boys have already died? how is he any less fit for the grave than they?_

 _i told him i would kill him myself before i let him go again, and left him in the fields._

 _it took all night. i thought i would die, strangle on my own heart as it caught in my esophagus. i thought he had already left, and i could not breathe, not sleep, not speak._

 _he came to me with the wind at dawn, no apologies, just the reassurance of hands, of lips. he will not go._

 _not now._

 

 

The day is well underway by the time the little caravan departs. Chris has banged together a cart from some pieces of wagon left in the shed, and fashioned it with handles so that it can be either pulled or pushed by one or two persons at a time. It’s a rather clever piece of work, Zach thinks admiringly. Certainly Elisabet and the toddler seem well pleased with it.

 

The older boy is determinedly planning to walk with the adults, and Jean-Luc is too small to express an opinion, but Michelle and Elisabet are all approval, and Zach smiles to himself as Chris visibly basks in their praise.

 

Mathilde is grumpily perched in the top of Chris’ rucksack, scowling her green-eyed scowl at any who dare approach, and Zach feels a pang as he looks back at the farmhouse which has been their temporary home.

  
He weeded the garden that morning, hoping it will feed whoever needs it. Maybe they’ll come back, in a week, a month.

 

So much depends on the outcomes of things over which they have no control.

 

The group rallies, and without really realizing it, begins to walk. Westward and south, heading for the sea, hoping to find shelter somewhere the fighting will not come.

 

He’ll miss it, he thinks, catching Chris’ eye and smiling, but for the moment, he has everything he needs.

 

 

1) Je t’aime, mon cher – I love you, my dear one.

2) Ce n’est rien, Madame – It’s nothing, madam.

3) “Voici. Il est parfait, n’est ce pas?”- See, here. He’s perfect, is he not?

4) Oui. Il est parfait – Yes. He is perfect.


	11. Juillet

  
_ July 1918 _

  


 

 

 _3 rd july, 1918_

 _we hear next to nothing ici. frustrating. sometimes we will hear the allied planes fly over._

 _usually, nothing._

 _it’s almost as though the war has never existed out here. they’ve never been bombed, never had troops. there are a few military outposts, but they’re all further into the towns than we are. if it weren’t for the rationing and the lack of any males between the ages of12 and 70, you might never know._

 _i still write home._

 _8 th july, 1918_

 _someday this war will end._

 _i say this not out of optimism, but out of fact._

 _eventually, the huns stopped marauding. eventually the mongol hordes got over china. revolutions come and go, bitter border disputes flare up, then die again._

 _regardless of how, it will end._

 _and what then?_

 _then, somehow, at some point, we go home._

 _each of us._

 _alone._

 _11 th july, 1918_

 _i_

 _i want_

 _my hand shakes. even admitting these things to the pressed pulp of paper is… nearly impossible._

 _i want him with me. i want him to stay with me._

 _it can’t be. why would he ever want to do such a thing? no, his future lies elsewhere. somewhere sunny, warm._

 _not with me._

 _but when i wake in the night, when i feel his breath on my neck, when i see his sleeping face, and feel his hand clutching mine._

 _i let myself dream a little. just for a moment, i let myself feel how happy i am. how, in spite of this ridiculous, ludicrous, god-forsaken war, i am the happiest i have ever been. how when he turns his face to me and smiles, my heart explodes, pushing past my solar plexus to radiate outward into infinity._

 _if i am hell-bound for my actions, i shall protest with my dying breath that they were all in the name of love._

 _somehow, and i have no idea how, he has wormed his way so deep into my psyche that i cannot imagine what it will be like when he leaves._

 _don’t take the apple, adam. it’s poison to the core._

 _it’s only going to hurt me. i know this, i **know** this. but._

 _but._

 _would it be so bad?_

 

 

“Hey Zach.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Zach looks up from where he’s placing the small wooden slats into the back of the miniature boat.

 

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?”

 

His hands still. Chris is looking at him with that stare of repressed wistfulness, so he turns back to the boat at hand. It’s simple; a flat, elongated triangle of wood, rounded at the nose, with two long prongs pointing straight off the back.

 

He has fashioned a small paddlewheel out of two interlocking slats, and is situating it in the groove he’s carved into the prongs. Elise’s oldest son will like it, he thinks.

 

“I… don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

 

That’s a lie, but a useful one. This is not a conversation he especially wants to have.

 

“What do you mean? Of course you have.” Chris laughs, but sounds slightly confused.

 

Zach lifts his head, smiles at the man across the campfire from him. “What are you going to do?”

 

Chris shoots him a look that says distinctly that he’s aware Zach’s avoiding, but will let him get away with it for the moment. “I think I’d go for a walk first.”

 

“A _walk_?” Zach is incredulous. “What, you haven’t had enough walking? Would you like a forced march? I’m sure we could arrange something if you’d like…”

 

Chris just laughs at him, poking at the fire and making a spray of sparks shoot skyward. “No, see, you’re an _East-Coaster_ ” He loads his tone with as much mock derision as he possibly can. “You wouldn’t understand.” His eye twinkles.

 

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Zach rolls his eyes. “What is it about taking a _walk_ that would make it the first thing you want to do when you get home?”

 

Chris is still smiling, but his eyes are distant. Zach watches surreptitiously, winding the rubber band around the de facto paddle wheel so that it makes the wheel spin when released. “There’s this canyon behind my house. I’ve been hiking in it since I could walk. It’s…” he leans forward and rotates the fish on the spit, pausing for words. “It’s beautiful, like nothing else in the world. Rocks and sagebrush and sandy dirt. I used to go there when I was sad, and just sit on a log and watch the sunset. Or in the mornings, I’d go running up the canyon floor. The colors…” He pauses again, thinking hard. “It’s like the ocean, how there are a million different colors, never the same twice. In the sun in June it’s one way, in the sun in January, another. But always beautiful.”

 

He shrugs, smiling sheepishly, and Zach remembers to breathe again. “I mean. I want to see my family again, of course. But… I think that will be almost too much. My mother… she never wanted me to come. She was sure I was going to die.” He pulls a face. “I told her she was just being morbid, but there was no convincing her. I can’t imagine what she’ll be like when I come home.” He laughs freely, his face open and warm. “She’ll go batty.”

 

Zach spins the paddle wheel with his thumb, listening idly to the whir of kinesthetic release.

 

“What will you do, Zach?”

 

He bites his lip, pulling at the wheel again. “I’ll pet my dog first. I miss him. And then hug my mother, I suppose. She’s not like yours, of course- when I left, there wasn’t a war. But…” his voice trails off, and Chris waits patiently for him to resume. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her. So I’d like that. I’d like to hug my mother.”

 

Chris smiles at him, and he forces his mouth into a semblance of pleased expression.

“Chris?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I… hope we can stay in touch. You know. Christmas cards or something.”

 

The silence lasts, and he looks up in time to see Chris’ expression move from confused to hurt to angry and back to confused.

 

“Christmas cards or something?” he says, and Zach’s chest hurts in a sudden pang, because Chris sounds like he’s begging him to say something different.

 

“Well, you know. I’d like to not lose touch with you completely.” A thought occurs to him abruptly, and he hangs his head. “That is, assuming you don’t mind. If you do, I…”

 

There are sudden arms around him, pulling him close and squeezing just a little too tight. “Fuck. Zach. ‘ _Christmas cards or something_ ’?” Chris sounds vaguely horrified, and more than a little pissed. “Are you insane?”

 

“Um… no?”

 

“Yes.” Chris’ tone is firm. “You must be. Were you kidding?” He waits. “Fuck, you _weren’t_ kidding. Zach…” The arms around him tighten even more, and he forces himself not to squirm in the uncomfortable embrace. “Zach, you idiot. Christmas cards.” He snorts, and Zach feels resentment bubble up in him suddenly. He hadn’t thought he was being unreasonable. “Did you really think I’d be satisfied with Christmas cards?” He waits again, and Zach makes no move, no answer. “ _Christ_ , Zach. You did, didn’t you? Why? Why would you think that would ever be enough for me?”

 

Chris pulls back, laying his palms on either side of Zach’s face, his hands cold and solid, his eyes searching Zach’s, looking for God-knows-what, Zach thinks. His face is wide and desperate.“I’m not even going to speculate on what I ever could have done to make you think I don’t love you. Or want to be near you, with you. But Zach, listen to me. No, _don’t fucking duck your head_ , listen to me!” He holds Zach’s skull in place, and all Zach can think of is running, fast, before Chris can say whatever this is he’s going to say. “Zach. I love you. I don’t want to go back and be alone. I don’t want to exchange fucking _Christmas cards_. I want to be _with_ you at Christmas. I want to stay with you.”

 

There’s a sudden tang of blood in his mouth, and Zach knows he’s worried through his bottom lip. He closes his eyes, and Chris sighs, pulling him close.

 

“Zach. Honestly.” He forces himself to relax into Chris’ warmth. “I’m going to show you my canyon myself.” He settles them both, and snorts under his breath. “ _Christmas cards_. Goddamn.”

 

It’s a nice delusion, Zach thinks, and lets Chris interlace their fingers where they rest on his knee. A very nice delusion.

 

He’ll just believe it for a little while.

 _17 th july_

 _C is wary with me. just distant enough._

 _it hurts._

 _what happened? when we met… we were instantly so close. i was drawn to him, instinctively, and… and i like to think he was the same. and then he was gone, and i was sick with worry, not even able to imagine that he might survive. or that he might not._

 _and then he did. and that was its own miracle._

 _and then… then, suddenly, i understood._

 _i loved him. i still love him. madly, desperately._

 _but i never wanted to involve him in this. and to think, now, that he is so eager, so ready to just… what? set up house? we can’t do that, not really. it doesn’t work that way. he doesn’t understand._

 _he’s young. he’s earnest. and as fervently as i want to believe that he’s in love with me, even if he truly believes he’s in love with me, i can’t…_

 _i can’t let him ruin his life for me._

 _he’d come to regret it, and what then? where are we, when the bloom is off the rose, and we can’t go home?_

 _no._

 _22 nd july, 1918_

 _i love him too much to tell him no._

 _or too little. maybe if i loved him more, we would never have come to this. i would have resisted._

 _or maybe père louis is right, and love is a gift._

 _i can’t resist him. i am only human._

 _he touches my soul, and i am lost. and if i am lost already, should i not embrace it with open arms? is there any glory in struggling against the inevitable?_

 _points for effort?_

 _the church teaches forgiveness for sins when there is true repentance. but can I truly repent for something I enjoy so much?_

 _père louis would have me believe that love itself is not a sin, that we are all beloved of God, in spite of our sins._

 _i want to believe._

 

 

“I was talking to old man Etienne at the other camp today.” Zach is sliding his fingers through Chris’ hair. It’s nearly long now, hanging across his collar in the back.

 

Chris makes a contented noise, and snuggles closer, tucking his arm across Zach’s chest. “What’d he say?” Chris’ voice is sleepy. It is late, Zach supposes. He hasn’t been sleeping that well recently, so he’s less aware of when he’s supposed to be tired. Or more tired than usual, anyway.

 

“He said the Germans have retreated.” He can feel Chris perk with interest.

 

“Really? But that’s great! How far?”

 

“He’s not sure. But enough that they’ve lost Rheims. Maybe as far back as they were in March.”

 

“My god, that’s encouraging! That’s the first time they’ve retreated in…” Chris thinks for a second, “well, what, at least four months?”

 

“Yes.” Zach slips a hand under Chris’ shirt and feels his cheeks move as he smiles against Zach’s chest.

 

“Well, so, now what?”

 

Chris’ hands are deftly unfastening his pants. Their tent is pitch-black, but Chris is tactile by nature, and has yet to encounter any difficulty in divesting Zach of his clothes in the dark.

 

“What do you mean, ‘now what’?”

 

Chris lifts his arms, letting Zach pull his shirt off over his head, and Zach takes a moment to slide his palm down an arm, caressing the lines of muscle and skin, warm against his hand. His body is so different from Zach’s own- tall, but dense; golden and nearly hairless. Zach loves it, loves the similarities, the differences. The press of hand and foot and tongue.

 

“Well, I mean…” Chris slips a bare knee between Zach’s and chuckles breathlessly at his sharp inhale. “I mean, we can’t really stay here indefinitely.” Chris’ hands are tight on his waist, pulling them together as he buries his face in Zach’s neck, moving his mouth in wordless appreciation.

 

Zach presses their faces together, pulling Chris up against him, bare skin to bare skin. He loves this, the way they fit together; each concavity of one is fitted to the convexity of another, each hollow filled. It’s as though they were made for each other, noses and eye sockets and chins fitting together like pieces of a puzzle, like pegs in holes. If form indicates function, Zach thinks, then his function is this; to lie with Chris pressed close as possible, eliminating any distance between them.

 

“Yes. You’re…” he runs a thumb across a nipple and Chris moans, quiet in the total dark, rubbing his fingers into the muscles lining Zach’s spine and pressing his hips forward. “You’re right. Fall is coming. And rain. This… our tent…” Chris pulls at Zach’s hips, rolling so that Zach covers him, his heavy cock bumping against Zach’s own, and Zach loses his train of thought for a moment, bending forward to lick his way into Chris’ mouth.

 

“Our tent…?” Chris prompts teasingly, and Zach bites at his collarbone in reproach, laughing when Chris jumps as Zach runs a finger down behind his dick. He’s slicked it with Vaseline, but it’s still cool from the night air.

 

“…our tent is not sustainable. Not for the long term.” He presses a finger in, waiting as Chris relaxes around him before sliding forward. Chris gives a slow breath in, then out, loosening his grip on Zach’s biceps and lifting his head to kiss him slowly. Zach twists his hand, sliding a second finger in with the first, laying his head on Chris’ abdomen to hear his pulse increase.

 

“So…” Chris pulls Zach’s free hand up to his face, pressing his head into it before kissing his palm. “…what are we going to do?” Zach pulls his fingers free, turning his face to press a kiss against Chris’ belly as he flinches from the withdrawal. He lines himself up and pushes inexorably in, rubbing at the back of Chris’ thighs, holding himself still as he relaxes fully.

 

The first time, Zach couldn’t comprehend it; how something so clinical, so abstractly strange, could make him feel like he was dying, like the world was ending around his ears. Chris was so open, so immediately present, wrapped around him and waiting. It still is incomprehensible to him, but he thrusts forward anyway, letting himself be pulled into the undertow of breath and touch and taste and pull.

 

“Hey.” There’s a hand on his face as he rocks them back and forth, moving ever harder and faster in the timeless rhythm. “Hey. Stay with me.” Zach opens his eyes, making out the pale orb of Chris’ face in the dark. “I’m right here.” He smiles and falls, dimly aware of Chris shuddering beneath him, draping himselfacross Chris’ chest and curling his face into the dip between his shoulder and pectoral. Chris’ hands come up to knot in his hair, rubbing strong fingers into his neck as he _hmmms_ in contentment. “We’ll figure something out.”


	12. Août

_ August 1918 _

  


 

 

 _4 th august, 1918_

 _august. my favorite month back home. thunderstorms and cicadas and fireflies and apples. heat and lightning and the body-deep sense of the turning of the seasons._

 _i can sense it here; there are still apples and fireflies. the air is different; salty tang like sweat, like blood, but still moving, still thick with late summer._

_ He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. _

_we’re heading back inland soon. fall is coming, and we can’t stay in tents much longer. gales come up over the coast, and we’ll be blown away._

 _though admittedly, be blown away to spain or somesuch does have its appeal._

 _michelle and elisabet are planning on heading for home- rumors say that the germans have retreated enough that they should be safe. who can say whether that will last, but for the time being, it’s better for them to be with what family they have left._

 _we have talked it over._

 _it’s too soon to try and return to the states. the war is not over, even if it is starting to seem as though the tide may be turning._

 _i feel worse and worse about having run from the front lines. but i did not know what else to do._

 _at least i have been of some use out here._

 _more tales of the flu. alarming things we hear- it is spreading quickly, it kills swiftly. not just infants and grandmothers, like one expects, but men and women in their prime. some new strain is lending it strength, and the malnutrition and uproar of war are feeding it like paper to flame._

 _8 th aug, 1918_

 _on the road again. heading east instead of west._

 _C’s idea. to return to the farmhouse._

 _don’t know what to think of it. makes practical sense- has some food, will have more food as the harvest goes on. is known to be unoccupied, has a roof, etc etc etc._

 _seems nostalgic?_

 _this whole… summer. i can’t begin to process it._

 _am starting to believe that père louis was right. this is a gift. an unsought for, undeserved gift. but a gift nonetheless, and one that i would be a fool to turn away. perhaps it is my sin convincing me, perhaps it is Satan himself, but i cannotbelieve that. i am too tired to engage in the theological hubris that tell me that my soul is so crucial that a divine monster will sacrifice the soul of another to win me over._

 _i am worth only what i am worth; as a human, as a man. no more or less than any other._

 _if there is a God, and if He is good, if He is love, then it is not only foolish, but sacrilegious to refuse love offered._

 _love is what makes us, creates us, and breaks us open. all of us are capable of it, but not all of us will receive it. and real love, true love, the love that makes us move beyond the (admittedly delightful) desires of the flesh into the realm of the bonding of spirits, that…_

 _that is transcendence, and can only be holy._

 _10 th august, 1918_

 _michelle and elisabet traveling with us as far as the farmhouse to get some supplies, then heading north._

 _jean-luc is sickly. he has been so strong, but we stayed overnight in a town with several flu cases, and i worry. elisabet does too, but she is trying to hide it._

 _Saint-Gérard, qui, comme le Sauveur, aimait les enfants si tendrement et par vos prières libéré beaucoup de maladies et même la mort, de nous écouter, qui plaident pour notre enfant malade._

 _we should reach the house tomorrow in the late afternoon._

 _12 th aug, 1918_

 _jean-luc died early yesterday morning._

 _there was nothing i could do._

 _13 th aug, 1918_

 _michelle, elisabet, and the remaining children have left, continuing north. elisabet is not herself, but michelle has taken charge._

 _we offered for them to stay, but michelle thought it better to continue to find family. she thinks it will help elisabet to see their parents, to have more help caring for matthieu and julie. it went unsaid that the other children may yet fall ill._

 _i will never forget the sounds Elisabet made when she realized he was gone._

 _there was little mourning at l’hopital. none of us knew the patients well, and there were no family or friends near. occasionally there would be two men who knew each other, and then it was especially sad, but nothing… nothing like this._

 _i tried everything. it was too swift. first a cough, then a fever, then by midnight he was bleeding from his nose and limp in his mother’s arms. before dawn he was gone. i have never seen anything like it._

 _C was indispensable. he stayed with elisabet and the body until we reached the house, then took her away, outside, with michelle and the children while i prepared it for burial. built a tiny coffin out of spare wood in the shed._

 _i washed him in the stone sink. two and a half months, he made it. longer than some, i suppose. not as long as he should have. i washed his limbs and wrapped him in one of my shirts. he was so heavy and limp in my hands, his head hanging from his neck. not like a ragdoll at all, though i can understand the comparison. there is a weight to a body that a doll does not have, and the way that bones slide under skin when muscle is no longer in use, no longer contracting and extending and pulsing. his skin was pale on top, and blue on the underside where the blood had pooled as he lay in the cart._

 _i wish we had a priest to bless him, but we do not. i prayed while i moved him in my hands, just as i did when i first laid my hands on him, when my hands were the first thing to touch him outside the womb._

 _by the time i had finished, C had dug the grave with the others. just like old times; me with the bodies and him with the shovel. like a never-ending nightmare, and if it never happens again, it will be too soon._

 _we closed the coffin and laid it in, and michelle took elisabet away before C began to cover it up._

 _no mother should ever have to watch such a thing._

 _Oh God of us all, supposed-father of all humanity, you who are so unreachable above the clouds and yet so omnipresent. Receive this child into your arms. Receive also this righteous fury, if in fact it is truth that you have taken him like a glutton from this world too soon. Comfort his mother, who is beside herself with grief. And end this fucking war._

 _Amen._

Chris finds him in the dirt on his knees behind the house, staring into the space beyond the freshly turned earth.

 

“Hey.”

 

Zach doesn’t answer.

 

Chris settles down beside him, leaning his back against the cool stone of the house. The sun is setting earlier these days, a sure sign of the earth turning to fall.

 

“You did everything you could.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Why are you out here, Zach?”

 

“I…” His tone is calm, steady. “It just seems right.” He shifts slightly, pulling a leg out from beneath him. “He’s got no one left.”

 

Chris lets his skull thunk back against the stone. “Yeah.”

 

“Doesn’t it seem funny to you? I mean…” Zach shifts again, and pushes his glasses up his nose. “This is what we would think of as a family graveyard, yes?”

 

“Well, sure.” Chris hooks his hand in the back of Zach’s belt, pulling on him until he scoots back against the wall, his shoulder warm against Chris’. “Pretty common.”

 

“Right. But this… it’s not a family, not anymore.”

 

He sounds vaguely distressed at this, and Chris pulls him down, positioning Zach’s head in his lap and beginning to rub the taut lines of muscle in his neck.

 

“Does it matter? I mean, look at it this way.” Zach groans as Chris finds an especially stiff cord of tendon. “The family that lived here before we found this place. They had a child.” Zach nods slightly in agreement as Chris pauses. “Do you think, if they had been alive, they would have turned away a baby that had nowhere else to go?” Zach’s head shakes infinitesimally. “No, of course not. So why should it be any different now they’re dead? I mean… assuming that they care at all, which frankly, I’m not convinced is a valid assumption. I mean, shouldn’t they be in heaven? Why are they worried about where they’re buried? In any case, I can’t imagine they’d mind.”

 

He digs his thumbs in, and Zach groans under his breath, turning his head to allow the best access. “Besides. What is family, anyway? I mean, I love my family. Of course. But…” he lays his palm carefully on Zach’s cheek, rubbing his thumb over a dark eyebrow. “You’re just as much my family as those whose blood runs in my veins. We’re family, you and I, and if I were dead, I’d rather be buried with you, here, than with strangers in some plot in California.”

 

“Chris…”

 

He lays his finger across Zach’s lips.

 

“No, Zach, it’s ok. I _will_ die. At some point, may it be far from now. So will you. It’s the second constant of life- we are born, and then, at some point we die.”

 

“ _Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,_ _And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell…_ ” Zach’s whisper is faint in the cooling air.

 

Chris’ finger traces the lines of Zach’s face, point of eye to curve of chin, his touch lingering warm on his skin. “All we ever have is the moment we’re in. What good does it do to worry about yesterday, or tomorrow? Beyond what we need to survive, what more do we need to concern ourselves with than our own joy and the joy of others? Zach…” He leans forward, wrapping an arm around his chest and pressing his lips to Zach’s temple. “Zach, you did all you could. He died free of pain, in the arms of the one who loved him most. What more can any of us ask for?”

 

Zach sighs, turning his face into Chris’ chest. “ _Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so…One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die._ ”

 

 

 _22 nd august, 1918_

 _russia_ _has revolted. one more in a series, though granted, the largest so far. the people are running mad and the royalty are nowhere to be found._

 _reports of the flu’s ravages are spreading east, fearsome in their tone. it is early in the season yet; i fear greatly what this means for winter._

 _proud or not, death has her sickle at all our throats._

 _only petite mathilde is safe._

 _26 th august, 1918_

 _today C is 20._

 _i forget he is so young._

_yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain…_   
_Take me to you, imprison me, for I,  
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,  
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. _


	13. Septembre

  
_ September 1918 _

  


 

 _3 rd sept, 1918_

 _little news from anywhere. tide of refugees is on hold, paused, frozen, immobilized._

 _tls, no news._

 _last we heard, the news was fine, for variable definitions of fine. the allies have supposedly broken the german line’s back, and victory shall be ours. with the russians occupied internally, it could be soon. but. but. we have heard this all before. will the war end soon?_

 _who can say?_

 _becoming truly fall now. i think again of tristan, again and again and again. he was older than i; he would be… 25 now? i believe that’s correct. his birthday was yesterday. would have been yesterday. if he weren’t dead._

 _but he is._

 _C reminds me of him sometimes. it startles me. there is no physical resemblance; both are tall, but tristan was elegant. clean lines, long limbs, dark like me. an interesting face, rather than handsome, but always in motion._

 _C is fair, and sturdy. a venusian cherub grown to life. Eros in his prime, long before Psyche’s scarring drop._

 _no, their resemblance is more elusive; there is a certain fluidity in their stride, an economy of movement that is surprisingly graceful in a man of their size._

 _C is extremely present, just as tristan was. there is no way not to know if he is in a room; the very space bends around him, attracts to him, recasts its physics with him as the gravitational well._

 _8 th sept, 1918_

 _what about when the war ends?_

 _what about it?_

 _what do we do then?_

 _he asks me every day; not in words, but in gestures, in touch, in exquisitely timed looks._

 _where he has gotten the idea that it would make any kind of sense for us to… to what, i’m not entirely sure. (to travel together? to stay together? to **live** together? who **does** that?) i’ll never know, but he has attached himself to it with the straightforward stubbornness of a small child. _

_i want to give in. to give up. to give to him anything he wants, to nod and reassure him that anything is possible, just as long as we’re together._

 _i can’t._

 _how? how could it even be?_

 

 

He’s nearly asleep when he feels the bed sink under Chris’ weight. It’s well into night, probably at least ten, and though he’d tried to stay awake until Chris came back, at some point he had let his eyes fall shut and slid into a waking doze.

 

There’s a swift imprint of lips on his cheek, the rasp of stubble and smell of dust. He smiles, his eyes remaining impossibly heavy.

 

“Hey,” Chris says.

 

“Hey. How was town?”

 

He can hear the noise of him stripping off, dropping his boots with matching thunks into the corner, pulling his shirt over his head to toss on the chair.

 

“You know. Usual. No news.” There’s a grimace in Chris’ voice. “Except for flu. Which is apparently the scourge of nations.”

 

Zach snorts into the pillow, but feels the hair on his arms rise. It’s true; he’s never heard of anything like this wave, and he thinks not many have. “It’s unprecedented, I know, but nonetheless… it’s hardly the Black Plague.”

 

The bed dips again, creaking as Chris stretches out, rolling over to push Zach onto his belly. He’s lax and limp with sleep, his body pliant and warm as Chris hikes up his night shirt and spreads him out, pushing his thighs wide as he kneels between them.

 

“I did come back with one thing, though.” Chris sounds self-satisfied, and Zach smiles in the dark at the cocky tone and the firm fingers beginning to knead into the small of his back.

 

“Mm?

  
Chris chuckles, leaning forward to bite at the curve of Zach’s hip, making him jump in surprise. “How do you like eggs?”

 

His hands are strong and assured, digging deep into the muscle fibers of his ass, the backs of his thighs. Zach melts into the bed a little more, floating on a wave of sleep and pleasure.

 

“…mmm… eggs are good…”

 

There’s a bite on the back of his neck and a chuckle in his ear. He sighs contentedly as those hands work up and down his spinal column, forcing knotted muscle into blissful release.

 

“Good. Glad you like ‘em.” Chris snickers again. “Look at you. You’re just out for the count, aren’t you?”

 

“…mmm…”

 

“I got us a chicken.”

 

“… A what now?”

 

Chris apparently can’t help himself anymore, falling forward to bury his face in the small of Zach’s back, laughing and laughing. “A chicken, you ninny. A hen. A small feathered fowl which lays ovoid protein sources.”

 

That is quite enough, Zach decides, and reaches around to land a pinch on Chris’ side, making him jump, and laugh again. “Mathilde’s going to love that. Mmm…” The touch of a finger, just there, and he sighs, spreading his legs further as Chris works his way in, moving languidly as he rubs his cheek across Zach’s skin.

 

“Yes. I think she already knows. Tiny pest.”

 

“…ahh…”

 

“Feel good?”

 

He tenses when Chris’ hand moves away, but relaxes again at the slow insistent pressure that replaces it. He feels himself open and stretch as Chris presses forward, spreading himself across Zach like a wave on a shore, stretching his hands up to intertwine their fingers. Chris is heavy, solid, but Zach loves the feel of his weight above him, pinning him to the bed and holding him still, warming him with his body and binding him to this moment, this space.

 

“Zach, you ridiculous man, I adore you.”

 

His breath catches and he doesn’t know what to say, frozen in surprise, and then Chris begins to move, and it no longer matters. They’re lost, pushed over and subsumed in the give and take of skin and heat. It’s long, slow, and drawn out, Chris’ hands wandering the full plain of Zach’s body, tracing into every hollow, every joint. He finally braces himself with his hands on Zach’s hips, curved around and clutching, holding him in place in a way that feels immovable, permanent, as he thrusts harder and harder. He’s panting, his dick rubbing blissfully into the mattress, and it’s release like the overwhelming pleasure of scratching an itch, shortcircuiting past his higher functions to settle a blinding heat at the base of his skull as he clenches and gasps and releases. He can feel Chris lock up above him, his hands clutching fervently at Zach’s hips as he breathes his name, falling back down across him again in sudden bonelessness.

 

The sound of their labored breathing echoes in the dark room, augmented after a moment by the sound of Mathilde’s purr. She pricks her claws into Chris’ foot through the bedcovers, and he pulls out and rolls over, settling into the mattress and falling asleep almost instantly, his breathing slipping into the repetitive rhythms of somnolence.

 

Zach scoots over, curling into Chris’ warmth and wrapping an arm around his chest, tucking it into the space between Chris’ ribs and the mattress. He pulls up close, mouthing along Chris’ hairline to the edge of his ear.

 

“Je t’aime, mon cher.” The only response is a gentle sigh. “Je t’adore.”

 

 

 _13 th sept, 1918_

 _rain. flu. war._

 _what else is new?_

 _15 th sept, 1918_

 _i don’t understand. i don’t. i make some comment about “when we go back”, and he looks at me like i’ve kicked mathilde._

 _what does he think is going to happen? what does he think we can do? never see our families again? get **married**? _

_even if… even if i would, we can’t. i can’t let him do that. he has a future, a family. ma’s got joe, he’s got kids. even if batty uncle zach lived abroad and never married, C is… he’s his family’s hope. he’s young, he’s smart, he’s handsome, he’s kind, he’s…_

 _he can do better. he will do better. i can’t let my own desire for what cannot be tie him down._

 _regardless of what he may think he wants._

 _it’s for his own good._

 _18 th sept, 1918_

 _he would tire of me. and then what? then what?_

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Zach looks up, smiling at Chris as he stands in the doorway. “I found some glass jars and lids. Thought I’d can some food for the winter.”

 

Chris can’t help the sudden jump in his heart, and smiles back. “Thinking of staying?”

 

He regrets it the minute it’s out of his mouth; it’s the wrong thing to say, and he knows it. They’ve been over and over this, neither giving way, neither giving up. They’ve had a truce for a few days. Now he’s broken it.

 

Zach’s face slides into neutral before he drops his eyes back to the cutting board. “It’s practical. Who knows exactly when we’ll be able to go home? We’ll need to eat until then.”

 

The words are low, but clearly audible, and Chris knows he’s not trying to pick a fight, not really, but he’s suddenly angry, enraged with a ferocity low in the gut that catches him by surprise.

 

“What’s wrong with you, Zach? Tell me, no, _really_ …” He’s set the three eggs he was carrying carefully on the kitchen table, mindful that they don’t roll, and is slinking now in Zach’s direction. “Am I that awful? That much of a burden to be with? That young? That,” he spits the word, “ _naïve_?”

 

Zach has put the knife down, turning his back to the counter. His eyes are wide, but his stance is firm. Backing down is neither of their strong suit.

 

“Why is it that you can’t even _conceive_ ,” his voice has risen, but Chris finds he doesn’t care, “of staying with me?”

 

He plants his hands on either side of Zach’s hips, pressing into his space, Zach’s space, Zach, who is, damn him, not at all intimidated.

 

“Explain it to me carefully, Zach. Maybe then I’ll understand.”

 

Zach blinks once, and Chris has a second to be shocked at the sudden well of hurt in his eyes before it’s written over with fury, and Zach is shoving back, a finger in his chest.

 

“So _that’s_ what this is all about. It finally comes up. Your _heart_ , your poor, fragile heart and the fear that someone might not always recognize what a goddamn _gift_ ,” he sneers, “you are to man.” Zach shoves Chris hard, and he backpedals, fetching up hard against the edge of the table. “You want small words? I’ll give you small words. _Family_. _Marriage_. _Duty_. Do any of those mean anything to you?” Zach’s hand is shaking in front of Chris’ face, but his eyes are cold. “Does it even _occur_ to you to think about what it might mean to your parents if you never come home? Because believe me, Chris, if we stay here, we will never be welcomed together anywhere else.” He takes a breath, his face fierce. “I’ve seen it, Chris, I know it. You have no fucking idea what it’s like, and I am tired of you crucifying me just because I am willing to make the best decision for the long term, the best decision for both of us.” His finger stabs into Chris’ chest again. “Someday you’ll thank me, Chris. I’m doing what’s right, for us, for you, for what’s left of our virtue. Chris, do you even understand how wrong what we’re doing is? We are living in sin, Chris, every day. Even if our love itself is not inherently wrong, even if that is so, our actions damn us over and over again. I can’t…” he shakes his head furiously, “I can’t let you keep doing this to yourself. I can’t let you throw yourself away over me.” He takes a deep breath. “Right now, this all seems very big and immediate to you, but someday… someday you’ll know better.”

 

His gut is roiling, twisted with hurt and fear, but it’s too far gone, he can only push back now. “Of course, _Zachary_. Because I’m a feeble-minded toddler. It wouldn’t ever cross my mind to think beyond the moment, to think of the _consequences_ of what I want. Because yes, Zach, I _do_ want it. I am in goddamn _love_ with you, and you don’t even seem to notice. No, that’s not true.” He pushes Zach back, hard, feeling a terrible pleasure at the sight of him stumbling to catch his balance. “You notice. But you don’t care. You don’t _believe_ me, because you don’t think me old enough, smart enough, fucking _worldly_ enough, enough like _you_ , to know what I mean. Do you have any concept, Zachary, how completely patronizing that is? That you think” he steps forward, seizing Zach’s hand and pressing it flat against his chest, watching as those molten caramel eyes widen minutely, “that I am incapable of knowing what I feel for you? And what I want to do about it? _God_.”

 

The anger leaves him in a rush suddenly, and he’s sick, so sick inside. He drops Zach’s hand like a coal, turning his face away. “That’s the root of it, isn’t it Zach? _God_. This God, this church, this _dogma_ that you want so desperately to believe in, to cling to, which condemns you at every turn. Who is this God to you, Zach? What is this church? Why is _it_ -” Chris’ voice hitches, but he pushes through, “why is it so much more to you than I? Why can’t you love me as much as this goddamned _construct_ that you are so prepared to let dictate your life? Why, Zach? Has it never even _occurred_ to you that there might be other ways? That maybe, just maybe, God just wants you to be happy? That maybe God is not so interested in who you _fuck_ , but in who you love? In your heart, your faith, instead of in your _goddamned_ contemplations of sin?” He wipes a hand across his eyes. “Why, Zach? Why can’t I mean more to you than this? _Why_?

  


“I thought we were friends, Zach. I thought we were equals. I thought…” He laughs, shakes his head. “I thought you loved me.” He turns away, grasping the handle of the door and wrenching it open. The skies are very blue today. “I’m sorry, Zach. I’m sorry I was such a fool.”

 

He walks out into the sun, letting the door shut softly behind him.

 

 

 _23 rd sept, 1918_

 _he…_

 _he left._

 _he walked out the door._

 _later-_

 _it’s been 7 hrs.i…_

 _he can’t be gone. not really. he’d take mathilde._

 _wouldn’t he?_

 _later-_

 _the moon has risen and now is setting._

 _God, forgive me my many sins, my manifold wickedness. i have rejected your gifts, and turned my love away for the most selfish of reasons. God, please, i just…_

 _fear. shame. self-righteousness._

 _God. whoever, whatever, wherever you are, i confess these to you, and beg your forgiveness and your intercession. i don’t know what to believe, i don’t know what to feel, i don’t know what to do. all i know is that i cannot live without him._

 _   
_

_please, please, I just want him back._

 _please._

 _please._

 **_please_ ** _._

He’s not asleep when he hears the downstairs door creak open, not really. He’s limp with exhaustion, eyes red from the irritating salt of tears. His breath catches in his throat, choking him into stiffened silence as he waits.

 

Footsteps. The sound of boots being kicked across the floor.

 

He struggles to breathe, not daring to hope, trying desperately to squash the jumping bounce of anticipation in his gut.

 

Feet on the stairs, slowly, pausing outside the doorframe. His fingers clutch at the sheet over him.

 

The light from the setting moon sends ethereal light banding across Chris’ face, lighting one eye too bright while leaving the other in impenetrable shadow. He looks haggard, sore.

 

Zach bites his lip.

 

“I’m still mad at you.” Chris looks at Zach like he dares him to say otherwise, to disagree yet again with his stated emotion. “I’m still goddamn furious with you. But… but, Zach…” He approaches the bed, pulling his shirt off and throwing it aside. “Zach. I can’t stay away from you. I can’t. Please.” His face is tortured, broken, the picture of determined helplessness. “Please. Don’t turn me away.” He kneels on the bed, stretching out a hand in an aborted gesture. “Please.”

 

He can’t speak, so he opens his arms, reaching out for him. The wind is knocked out of him in a rush as Chris hurtles into his arms, clutching him painfully hard and digging his face into his neck, all boney chin and grasping hands. Zach grasps back, hands moving, claiming, desperate to affirm the reality of the body crushing his into the mattress. Chris is gasping, shaking against him, and Zach pushes his hands into his hair, murmuring nonsense in his ear as he rocks them gently back and forth. He can feel the moisture on his own face, but he doesn’t care, can’t care, about dignity right now, not in the sweet dark surrounding them, not when he’s suddenly been given back all that he had feared lost.

 

Chris settles enough to breathe properly, and then somehow he’s kissing Zach ferociously, pushing into his mouth hard and fast and strong, teeth catching on his lip and pulling, claiming his mouth as his hands pin Zach to the bed. Zach doesn’t resist; doesn’t dare, and doesn’t want to anyway, thrusting up against the bruising grip of Chris’ hands on his body. There’s too much clothing in the way, too many layers between them, and then it’s gone; Zach’s nightshirt stripped off and thrown god-knows-where while Chris’ pants are still caught around an ankle. He kicks frantically and they’re gone, and then it’s just skin to skin, the slippery slide of arousal wet between them.

 

“Chris…”

 

Chris is kissing him like he can’t stop, mouthing over his skin like a predator, teeth scraping a nipple in a deliberate twist that makes Zach hiss between his teeth, his body rising against Chris’ chest in supplication as Chris moves down. His hands are still tight in Chris’ hair, nails scratching at his scalp as Chris takes his dick into his mouth, sucking hard and fast as Zach throws his head back and yells, hauling on Chris’ head to pull him up again, leaving his dick wet and bobbing between them as he kisses Chris hard.

 

“Chris, _fuck_ , I…”

 

A hot hand wraps around Zach’s dick, and he loses brain function for a moment, raising his legs instinctively to present himself, gritting his teeth as he hears Chris spit into his hand.

 

“Chris, listen to me, I was _wrong_ , I…”

 

He trails off, thought derailed as a finger pushes into him, damp enough but barely, followed almost immediately by a second. Chris releases his hip to reach down and slick himself with his free hand, turning his head to bite into the soft inside of Zach’s knee, making him groan in anticipation.

 

“Chris, I love you, I _love_ you, I’m _in_ love with you, I _god_ …”

 

A sudden thrust that lights him up tailbone to sternum with pain and lust, and there’s no grace in the way that Chris is plunging into him, no mercy in the fingers grasping his hips. His back arcs and he reaches up to pull Chris down to him, clutching his shoulders and sinking his teeth into his neck, marking the pale skin as his, only his, his alone, as he rides Chris’ furious pace.

 

It’s too fast, too raw, to last, and in what seems like heartbeats they’re cresting, Chris stiffening and shuddering as he releases, his peak triggering Zach’s own, and then he’s launched, stars exploding behind his eyes as his neurons fire in quantum meltdown.

 

He comes to with Chris still draped across him, eyes closed and face heavy on his collarbone. He’s just got the strength to tangle a hand back into that mess of fair hair and press a silent kiss to his forehead, earning him a quiet flinch that stabs him to the heart.

 

“Chris. Stay. Please. Stay.” He draws a shuddering breath. “We’ll work it out. I promise. I can’t…” he breathes again, exhaling deliberately to inhale again. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you.” He breathes slowly. “If it damns me to hell and beyond, it is the truth- I love you more than faith itself, and I cannot hold that as wrong any longer.”

 

He can feel the tension leave Chris’ body, his fingers working their way under Zach’s ribs to hold him close, the soft movement of his lips as he smiles into Zach’s skin.

 

“Just… stay.”

 

 

 _28 th sept, 1918_

 _i don’t know how. but it will work._

 _somehow. we will make it work._

 _i will not be parted from him._

 _ “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me…for I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” _

 

 __

_“And he caused him to swear again, for he loved him as his own soul… for you have been very dear to me; your love to me is wonderful, surpassing all other love.”_


	14. Octobre

  
_ October 1918 _

  


 

 

 _1 st oct, 1918_

 _rain. early rain this fall, and lots of it._

 _neither mathilde nor the chicken are impressed._

 _we got the barley in before the wet really set in, which is good- moldy barley does not good eating make. the barn on this place is fortunately still sound. a lot of the tubers are still in the fields, but we’re working on getting them out. they’ll make it just fine until we get them into the cellar._

 _rumors of tides shifting in the war._

 _it all seems so far away now.i remember when my days were filled with blood and shelling, with screaming men and shouting doctors. and now what? i am an unlikely farmer in the back of beyond, waiting patiently for news from the front?_

 _it must be a cosmic joke. and yet, i have never been happier._

 _6 th oct, 1918_

 _C went into town yesterday, taking the last of the turnips he promised old man L’Esperance in exchange for the chicken. turnips safely delivered, news and cigarettes obtained._

 _news is good. germany has formed a new government, there is talk of them wanting peace. i can hardly imagine. it seems as though we’ve been at war my whole life, even though i know this isn’t true._

 _seems that way._

 _flu is officially in the town- five persons died last week, according to Msr. L’Esperance, and another six already since tuesday._

 _alarming, but one must allow for rumor and exaggeration._

 _C was soaked when he got home; been pouring and pouring for days._

 _he’s decided he wants to open a bookshop in the town when all this is over. i think it dreadfully funny, the thought of him in a sweater and glasses, bent over books and dusty shelves, but i keep it to myself. our newfound accord is too precious, too sweet to sully with laughter. if that is his dream, then he shall have it._

 _i am truly blessed._

 

 

Chris coughs again, setting the spoon back down into his soup to cover his mouth as he hacks.

 

Zach narrows his eyes. “You all right?”

 

“Yeah.” Chris rubs his face with his fists, shivering lightly before looking dismally at his spoon again. “I think I must have caught a cold the other night, getting all wet like that. I’m all…” he gestures with a hand before pulling his body back in, “…kind of dizzy. And cold.”

 

Zach leans over to place a hand to his head, brow furrowing in concern.

 

“You’ve got a fever. Here…” He stands, grabs a blanket from the corner, wrapping it around Chris’ shoulders. “Finish your soup, and we’ll go to bed. Nothing left to do tonight anyway.”

 

Chris smiles faintly up at him, gratitude in his eyes as he pulls the blanket more closely around his torso, picking up the spoon again and raising it to his mouth.

 

He’s unnaturally warm in Zach’s arms that night, alternately shaking with chills and flinging the covers off to flap his nightshirt, his skin flushed with heat. Zach gets up twice to bring him water, making him sit up and drink it before letting him lay back down. His muscles tighten and knot under his skin, and he whimpers in his sleep with the ache of fever.

 

Zach lays awake through the night, falling asleep near dawn when Chris slides into an uneasy sleep, his face buried in Zach’s side.

 

He wakes with a start, relieved to find Chris still asleep beside him, but worried upon closer inspection. His skin is flushed bright red with his temperature, and he huddles in the blankets, his fingers unconsciously tight on the hems as he pulls them to his chin. Where the flush fades, his skin is pasty white, and he’s clammy and damp to the touch.

 

Zach slides out carefully, repositioning the blankets around the sleeping form as he toes on his socks to pad downstairs. Tea is in order, and a dose of his carefully hoarded aspirin from l’hopital. There’s not much left, but hopefully he shouldn’t need much; no doubt this is just a fever from being out in the cold and rain.

 

By the time he goes back up with tea and toast and small white pills, Chris is awake, smiling in a grimace through what is obviously some fairly strong discomfort. Zach feeds him, watching him drink the tea and swallow the pills, and takes the dishes back downstairs before heading out to perform the morning chores.

 

The aspirin helps, easing his aches and lowering his fever. Lunchtime sees Chris sitting up and laughing, reading to Zach as he mends a sock.

 

“See, here, he says _‘ Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.’_ If that’s not an argument for writing the history of this damned war however we want, I don’t know what is.” 

Zach laughs with him, the needle pulling taut in his hand. Chris reads further, his voice flagging, and after a few more minutes Zach goes to make more tea, palming the last of the aspirin when he hears Chris begin to cough.

It’s a deep cough, a wracking cough, and when Zach listens to Chris’ chest he hears a gurgle, the muffled thickness of fluid sitting deep in the alveoli, a dangerous rattle in otherwise healthy lungs. 

There’s a chill on his spine as he hands Chris the new pills, watching him like a hawk as he swallows them down, his throat working hard to pull in liquid and air in alternating draughts. 

He finishes the evening chores; cleaning the dishes, feeding the hen, searching fruitlessly for more eggs. He’d like to give Chris some more protein, but he didn’t seem especially enthused about eating in the first place. Well, he’s sturdy enough he’ll be ok if he doesn’t wantto eat for a little while, Zach decides, and reenters the house. 

The room upstairs is warm, but Chris is huddled under the covers in a shivering ball. The second dose of aspirin seems not have been as effective as the first, so Zach strips down, toweling his hair dry from the rain, and slides under the covers. 

It’s early yet, but dark already, the clouds blotting out any ambient light from the just-set sun, so Zach blows out the lamp, wrapping his arms around Chris as he shivers. 

He dozes for a bit, then wakes enough to hold the pot while Chris pisses, huddling back under the covers as soon as he’s done. His cough is worsening, and Zach feels the deep seated dread in the pit of his stomach wake to fresh life. 

This is too much, too fast. 

 

He turns Chris to face him, his brilliant eyes glazed with fever, and reaches out a thumb to wipe the corner of his mouth.

 

Blood.

 

Zach’s heart gives a sickened lurch, and he shakes Chris lightly, trying desperately to rein in his sudden terror.

 

“Chris? Petit? I need you to sit up. It’ll help you breathe. Here-” he shifts Chris until he’s leaning against the wall, the blankets wrapped completely around him. “Like this. Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

 

Chris nods dazedly, his eyes drooping in fatigue, and Zach has to fight every impulse not to leave him as he heads down the stairs.

 

He tries everything he knows, everything he can think of. Hot plasters, the very last of the aspirin, tea, cool cloths.

 

Nothing seems to help.

 

By midnight Chris is throwing up; first his soup and tea, then just water, then finally dry heaving while Zach holds on to him.

 

By two he’s delirious, and Zach is frantic. He bathes him with cold water, gritting his teeth at the pitiful noise Chris makes at the touch of the cold cloth on his skin, praying for something, anything that will make him better.

 

Some time around four Chris falls into a light doze, and Zach pulls his overheated body against him, cradling him in his arms and nuzzling into his hair. He’s deeply scared, abjectly horrified, his mind shrinking in denial from the list of symptoms he’s compiled. He digs his face into his hair, pressing his mouth next to one flaming ear.

 

“God, Chris, you have to get better, do you hear me? You’re strong, you’re healthy. You can beat this. It’s nothing. Look at you, you’ve survived so much- are you really going to let a little virus get you down? No, you won’t, you can’t.” His voice cracks to a whisper. “Chris, it’s like I’ve just found you. I love you so much, do you hear me? So goddamn much, and we’re just getting started, just getting to be together, you have to get better. You have to. I love you too much for you to do anything else.”

 

Chris smiles in his sleep and moves against him, his hand clutching at Zach’s as he turns.

 

“God, Chris, I love you so, so much.”

 

At some point Zach falls into a doze, and wakes at dawn to the pale fingers of light filter through the window, opening his eyes slowly as he struggles to remember why he is cramped against the wall.

 

It comes to him in a flash, and he runs a hand down Chris’ cool arm, shifting his weight out from under Chris, running a hand down his face as he lays Chris’ head down onto the pillow.

 

His face is restful, his eyes closed, and Zach watches as if in a dream as his own hands reach down to fold Chris’ limp arms across his chest.

 

He leans forward to kiss his cheek, his lips warm against Chris’ soft skin. The first tear falls to wet the dip next to Chris’ closed eye as he runs his thumb over Chris’ bottom lip.

 

He pulls the sheet up over his face, lifts Mathilde from the foot of the bed, and walks out the door.

 


	15. Epilogue

  
_ Epilogue _

 

 

I pushed the book across the table, staring blankly straight ahead. Sun was streaming through the windows, illuminating the dust motes as they moved sluggishly through the afternoon air. I could hear myself breathing slowly, the drag of air in and out of my lungs astonishing in its physicality, its substantial biological presence.

 

The tears were running down my face, but I made no move to wipe them. It felt like a sacrifice, an offering for the man lying still and silent in the next room, that I let them fall unchecked.

 

Had he ever told? Had anyone ever known? Or had he lived out his very long life here, alone, lost in the memories of that one life-changing year with the man he loved more than anything else in the world?

 

By all accounts he was a good man; a quiet type, lived alone, never married, never had children. Ran his bookshop in the town with calm and precision, interacting politely with all, but never pushing past that boundary of civility into anything more.

 

“Zach…” I breathed his name reverently, just to feel the taste of it on my lips. An afternoon spent with his journals, and I was nearly as in love with him as this Chris must have been. Small wonder Chris had refused to leave him.

 

But what of Zach?If all this had taken place in the first volume, then what were the two large stacks of leather bound journals in the corner holding?

 

I dug in my pocket for a handkerchief, mopping my face and blowing my nose, taking a deep breath before reaching out to drag the book back toward me, turning to the page where I had left off.

 

The inky writing noted the time of death ( _5:30 am, dawn, approximately_ ), and the cause, ( _virulent flu_ ), and then… nothing. Nothing for pages. I turned them, one after another.

 

A week’s worth of blanks, and then…

 

 

 _15 th oct, 1918_

 _dear chris-_

 _it’s been a week._

 _it has been seven days._

 _it has been seven days and five hours. approximately._

 _it has been…. so goddamn long since you left me. you LEFT me, chris, you fucking **died** and left me here. you weren’t supposed to do that! how could you do that? how could you do that to me? how could you **leave** me like this?_

 _we were supposed to stay together, to be together, remember? remember? remember how you begged me, how we fought, how you left and then came back?_

 _come back to me chris, please, please, i’ll give anything, anything to have you back._

 _please. please. please don’t be gone._

 _16 th oct, 1918_

 _i wake in the night and reach for you, and you’re not there._

 _i want to die, chris. i can’t live like this._

 _17 th oct, 1918_

 _all i want is to see your smile again. to look into your eyes. to touch your cheek._

 _but i can’t. you’re gone. you’re dead, chris, and i’m stuck here._

 _give me a reason to stay here. give me a reason not to come after you._

 _18 th oct, 1918_

 _mathilde is pregnant._

 _she looks at me with reproach. she wants to know what i’ve done with you, why you are not still here._

 _i nearly left, chris. i nearly left you on that bed, in this house, and never came back. walked into the sea. off a cliff._

 _but i couldn’t do it._

 _i washed you, chris. each limb, each joint, each curve and plain. the whole topography of your body which i have known and loved and touched and kissed, laid bare for me by Death. i washed your hands and your feet and your face. your chest, your thighs, the small of your back._

 _you were heavy. i struggled to turn you, having to leave and be sick when your arm flopped as i set you down._

 _your eyes stayed shut. thank God. if i had seen your face as i did so many times in my dreams, i would have gone mad._

 _i wrapped you in our sheets, chris, and carried you down the stairs._

 _dug a hole in the graveyard, next to jean-luc and the family whose names we never knew. laid you in it._

 _it took me a day before i could cover you with earth. one shovel at a time._

 _i made the noises i heard from elisabet. i did not know i was capable of them._

 _for three days i laid out there, chris. i couldn’t move. i waited and waited, for what, i can’t say. at dawn on the fourth day, the seventh day after your death, i got up and came back inside._

 _19 th oct, 1918_

 _i mailed your packet of letters. just like you asked me to. remember?_

 _when i write to you, chris, it seems like maybe you’re not so far away. like maybe you have gone on a trip, a vacation. to a tropical island, perhaps, where the sun always shines and the rain never falls._

 _i will stay until the kittens are born and weaned, chris. you would never forgive me if i abandoned mathilde in her time of need._

 _i will write to you every day._

 

 

I pushed the book aside, blowing my nose explosively. Every day, huh?Every day for seventy-odd years. Looking at the stack of books, I could believe it, believe that this methodically passionate man had never missed once.

 

I reached for the book, turning the pages, flipping indiscriminately, pausing to read excerpts as I browsed to the back.

 

 

 _8 th nov, 1918_

 _it’s been a month, chris. i don’t know why i’m still here. how i’m still here without you._

 _mathilde had her kittens last night, right in the middle of the bed, of course. there are two orange, a grey, and a tiny calico, a perfect miniature of her mother._

 _i want you to see them, chris. i want to see you hold them in your hands, to cradle their tiny little furred forms in your palms, to watch your face light up as you stroke their tiny heads._

 _God, chris, i miss you more than any words can ever say._

 _12 th nov, 1918_

 _peace was declared yesterday. you missed it by a month._

 _the war is over._

 _what do we do now, chris?_

 _what now?_

 _24 th dec, 1918_

 _O magnum mysterium,_

 _et admirabile sacramentum,_

 _ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,_

 _jacentem in praesepio!_

 _Beata Virgo, cujus viscera_

 _meruerunt portare_

 _Dominum Christum._

 _Alleluia._

 _do you realize we never had a christmas together?_

 _6 th jan, 1919_

 _my mother wants me to come home. i have told her no. i will not leave you._

 _i have finished your headstone. i did the others first. seemed fair; they were there first, after all._

 _there was so much about you i never knew, chris. will never know._

 _i still want to die, chris, nearly every night when i wake and you are gone._

 _but it gets better._

 _i can see dawn, now, and go an hour without turning to speak to you._

 _i will stay here, and be with you always._

 _it was a year ago today, chris, that you came back to me. do you remember? half dead and frozen, and still you found me?_

 _here’s the thing, chris- when God sent his only son, He did it out of love. love, and love alone. He did itthat we might learn love, that we might see Love enfleshed and walking among us, that we, we, the children of unfeeling hearts and broken souls, might find in ourselves, in **each other** , that deepest and most important of spiritual gifts. that we might come to love one another in truth and hope, and in all the myriad ways in which God Himself has created it._

 _does the church avow what i profess? no. of course not. and perhaps this sin will yet condemn me. i cannot say. but i can say now that i do not care._

 _listen, chris, this is what i can say to you- God, in his wisdom, created love. and God, in his wisdom, created us. and if, in this nearly God-forsaken time, we found Love? we found each other?_

 _then i can only say that, for the briefest of times, we had truly found God._

 _chris- if there is a heaven, and i can only hope it is so- then I hope that you will journey as far as you must to seek me out, to find me and know i am yours, and yours alone._

 _i am my beloved’s, and he is mine._

 _i am opening your bookstore, chris, in the town. i hope you’ll like it._

 

 

I closed the book and stood, stretching to crack my vertebrae, the sound echoing in the stone room. I yawned and turned, shifting the book so that it was in the shade.

 

I turned, opened the door, and walked out into the rays of the setting sun.

 

 

It took all the time we had, but we did it. Photographed each and every page of those journals, every last one of them.

 

I didn’t read them all- there was no time. Bits here and there of course; the second great war _(oh, chris, what would you think of this? the world ripped asunder again, the earth shaking under the feet of monsters wearing the faces of men_ ), the social revolutions of the sixties ( _they are only children, chris, and yet they think they are so wise. and who am i to say they are not? They would have welcomed us with open arms, my friend_ ). On and on for seventy years.

 

The bookstore’s assistant, a man by the name of Louis ( _ha_! I thought, _no surprise that Zach favored him_ ) and his wife, Claire, have been responsible for the arrangements. Louis told me with tears in his eyes that Zach had long been as a father to him, had adopted him at the age of twelve after the second war and raised him as his own. Claire was equally fond of him, apparently, and they will miss him greatly.

 

They have been adamant that the journals be buried with Zach, with which I am no longer inclined to argue. It’s right, somehow. Fitting.

 

I requested that they bury him with Chris, in the same grave. They did so without question. The original headstone was simple; ‘ _In memorium: carrissimi_ ’, to which we have simply added names and dates.

 

My plane flies out tomorrow morning, and I must go to Paris tonight. But in the meantime…

 

In the meantime, I will sit here, with them.

 

I will sit here with them and watch the evening fall, and the sky turn to night.I will keep watch, and pet this small calico cat who has turned up beside me and is rubbing insistently against my legs. And I will imagine them up above, wrapped in each other’s arms at long last, laughing and smiling in overwhelming joy.

 

 _Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen._

 _1)_ O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum      natum,  jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia.

  O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia!

2) Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

  



	16. Extended Author's Note

Ok. So.

So, assuming you have just made it through my big bang, and are still with me enough to not want to chase me with pitchforks, you may have a few questions. And, well, if you don't... I've still got some things to say. So there.

Because I'm me, we're just gonna do this list-style.

1) Where on earth did you come up with this idea?

   - I... honestly don't even really know. I was talking about writing a steampunk K/S story, and somehow my brain got onto WWI. And then I started thinking about how it's really kind of one of the forgotten wars, at least in the US. We think of WWII, and Vietnam, and the Revolutionary War, etc. But, for whatever reason, we don't think about the Great War.  
   When I was a kid, I was in a university choir for kids thing, drew from all around the area where I grew up. We had a really excellent director, who was really into having us sing pieces that would make us learn, as well as be great music. One of the pieces we sang was a setting of a very famous poem called "[In Flanders Fields](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields)", and that imagery just always stuck with me.There's a pretty good video of a choral arrangement of it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7XtmIAn7Lw)\- I don't think it's quite the same as the one we did, but... I could also just not remember. It's been 15 years.  
   In any case, it's always been something I knew very little about, but felt a pull toward, and as soon as I had the thought of Zach and Chris at the turn of the century, well, the story wrote itself. I couldn't resist.  
   Which is not to say that I was not TERRIFIED of posting it. I mean, it is sort of off in it's own world of doom and gloom and angst, and then of course I had to drag religion into it. Not that I think that pinto fans aren't a very accepting and attentive audience of varied tastes and interests. They are! But... I also knew immediately that I was going to kill someone off. Which, well...

brings us to...

2) Why on earth did you have to kill someone?

   - well, it just wouldn't have worked any other way. It wouldn't. It would have negated the punch of the whole story, and for another thing, would have been completely at odds with actual history. The Spanish Flu itself killed more people than the war did, especially young people in their prime. It turned your immune system against you, so the worst affected were those with the best immune systems; ie, the young and strong.  
  my betas all were... hesitant initially regarding the character death (is that a fair description, ladies?). For a while I considered writing an alternative ending and posting it, but I ultimately decided I couldn't, and all my betas eventually agreed. It had to go where it did.  
   However- in the meantime, to keep from referring to the ultimate doom at the end, I started joking w  about how really what happens is that Chris goes off to live on a tropical island somewhere, with coconuts and pina coladas and grass skirts and so forth. If you look for it, I actually did write that in, too!  
   So, if it helps, *really* what happens is that there is a beautiful tropical island far off in the distance...

3) Why doesn't Zach move on?

   This was something that also came up with my betas. One of them said to me at one point "I don't think it's romantic- it just seems mean and sad" (or something very close to that). And... I can see her point. I did change it a little so that he's not entirely alone- he has Louis, his adopted son. But... the thing is, it wasn't ever meant to be a sort of romantic longing thing. Just a fact of how humans are. I have known more than one person who has loved very deeply, and when their beloved dies, can just never get past it. It's not that they stagnate, or that their life freezes; it's more that that grief, that connection, is so deeply a part of them that they can't even conceive of sharing that with anyone else again. It's a once in a lifetime sort of thing. That was what I had in mind, I suppose, not the sort of Romeo and Juliet undying love. Just... a wound that never fully heals.  
   Zach's life goes on. He has meaningful connections to others, and I think anyway, was happy. But a little piece of him did die with Chris, and there's no getting around it.

4) You killed an infant. Dear heaven, why?

   Well, first off, historical authenticity. Infant mortality a hundred years ago was high, let alone in a war torn country. That's life. Second of all, I needed Zach to deal with something incredibly life-affirming (Jean-Luc's birth) turning senselessly the other way. So... yeah.  
   And why did I name him Jean-Luc? Well, because I'm a trekkie. I like to think of this Jean-Luc as being the many-great uncle or something of Jean-Luc Picard. *end total nerdiness*

5) You seem to have a disturbing familiarity with dead bodies.

   I don't know if I can truly claim familiarity, not really. But, when I was 16, my grandfather died. I was there during most of his illness; he got pnuemonia around the beginning of November, and got progressively sicker until he died very early Christmas morning. We lived very close to my grandparents at the time, and since I am the oldest child of their oldest child, we were there a lot. I fed him. I bathed him. I changed his diapers. And when he took his last breath, I was there. I watched the blood leave his scalp, I felt his hand go limp and start to cool. When  the coroner came, I watched them load him onto the gurney and cover his face. When they bumped the door frame, I watched his arm fall to the side.  
   It was, in it's own way, a privilege. I think very few people these days get that sort of experience. Death is so sanitized for us. It was sad, of course, but it was also fascinating, and I'm grateful to have witnessed it.  
   Part two of this story is that while I was writing this story, my grandmother, his wife, died. I had to fly home for the funeral, losing three weeks of finishing/editing time. Which both affected the story, and put me in exactly the right frame of mind to write it.  
   This story owes a lot to both of them, may they RIP.

6) Why didn't you cite all your quotes?

   Because I ran out of time. Seriously, the footnotes themselves took long enough. But, if you're curious, ask me, and I can prob tell you what things are. As I recall, the poetry is all either Biblical or John Donne. I think.  Oh, and there's a little Shakespeare.

7) Mathilde?

   I couldn't help myself. I love cats. :) 

8) What does the epitaph on their grave mean?

"In memory: Beloved"

This is taken from a rather expensively carved wooden cross that sits in the back of a church I know. There are two things that make this interesing:

First of all, the Latin grammar indicates that the "beloved" is male. In English, it would be technically "In Memory: Beloved Man", but that sounds weird to us.  
Ok, so what?  
Well, the so what is that it was donated by a very well known and wealthy man around town upon the death of his... very... close... friends.

Second? This was in about 1902 or so. I don't remember exactly.

So, obviously we don't know for sure, and can't know for sure. But it seems pretty likely that this cross was given as the only possible memorial to a same-sex love.

It seemed appropriate.


End file.
